What would you sit on Santa's lap for?

Apple have finally released a product I would actually use, so I steeled my nerves, sat on Santa's lap and he gave me one.

The sculpted, handsome exterior is very pleasing on the eye and an absolute pleasure to handle due to the use of soft touch materials in its construction. It's also a very intuitive design and ergonomically perfect - I could use it all day without tiring.
There are a couple of concerns, however. The Aux-in is a bit tight for my docking station, but I'm sure it'll give after a few uses. The Aux-out connector on the other hand is really quite large. Not that I'm complaining - There are far too many small parts about these days. No, it's just so big that one needs both hands to operate it otherwise it's just unwieldy. It's also overloaded my software a couple of times due to the sheer speed and volume of the datastream. I tried pulling it out/off but that only seemed to make it worse. It must have swollen up in the heat of the moment modem as I just couldn't pull it free!

Ooh! I nearly forgot to tell you what this splendid new product is.

I think I fancy Megamind!

Oh gods.



Just look at his cute little face:






Anyway, enough of that. I know I haven't been around much. I'll be back properly at the weekend.

I hope.

Look up

Shiver me timber

Brrrr... I loathe flying in these freezing conditions. In fact, I generally avoid flying during winter as Broom's bristles tend to ice up and the last thing I need is plummeting to a frosty doom in the middle of nowhere. Plus, flying means I have to carry a multitude of apparatus for safety reasons:

Weather vane to measure wind direction
Thermometer to measure temperature
Thaumometer to detect magical fields
Heliostat to capture what little sunlight there is
Siderostat to capture starlight while night-flying
Barometer to measure atmospheric pressure
Goggles to prevent watering eyes (namely, mine - Anyone else should bring their own)

No. It's too much. Flying during winter is for emergencies only. Car will just have to stop whining about being taken out in such treacherous conditions and lump it.


Ooh! I wonder if that abominable snowman stable is up and running yet? Perhaps I could ride an adult one around until the snow and ice melts?

Of Baths and Blogs

 Now, some of you seemed surprised at the fact that I have a blog notebook. When you think about it, it shouldn't be surprising. After all, I can't recall how many times I've mentioned how forgetful I am.

 My little blog-book always comes with me when I have a bath. You see, I like to wallow for a couple of hours in a nice, soothing bath, but it traps me, so, to stave off boredom, my imagination & memory go into overdrive and generates/recollects most of my ideas/our adventures. I think it's because I'm laying there doing nothing, with little to no distractions, so my minds are free to wonder/wander (as long as they come back again). Many an adventure over The Cusp has been recalled and jotted down - sometimes in excruciating detail - while in the bath. Also, the little adventures we've had out and about, or on the way to work. Even those things that have happened in the comfort and privacy of my own home.

 Here's Blog-book in its natural habitat:

('Petra, for your perusal, I have included my non-touchscreen phone which functions pretty much only as an alarm clock)

 Blog-book also follows me to bed. Well, one never knows when a dream will need capturing and pinning down to the page for later transference into the Demon Box, as the 27th November post clearly showed.

 Once I've transferred the captured thoughts and recollections, I cross through the page (or part-page if there's more than one subject per page) to show the future-me, who may be looking through the Blog-book, that we have committed it to Demon Box.

 Here are some examples that you may recognise. You may notice that not everything survives the transition intact:

(lick to engorge)

(Oops! I mean 'click', obviously...)

EDIT 17.06.2019 - added "& memory", "/recollects", "/our adventures"

Owlspring/Tips Diagram*

This diagram was devised to chart the tendancy of wizards, who start out small and pale, to progress through the craft getting bigger and cholerically redder until at last they swell up and explode in a cloud of pomposity.**

33. Unseen Academicals, by Terry Pratchett

Ummm... I've nearly finished it...

It's been a most trying and busy month, so reading has kind of gone out the window. I probably will finish this by tomorrow evening, though.


* from page 198

** unfortunately, there's no actual diagram available so you'll just have to imagine it based on this Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram interpretation. Just substitute the stars for wizards.

Last night I dreamt of shoes

Gold heels, to be precise. A bit like these Bridget's Back by Louboutin (the one's that 'Petra's been raving about),



but taller and less spiky with a wider heel (perhaps an inch and a half/4cm wide - And I mean wide as in ankle-to-ankle, not heel-to-toe). Somewhat like this:

(This was a quick sketch [complete with notes] made in my blog notebook when I awoke)

In the dream I was wearing them, teetering atop them upon some sort of runway or catwalk. As I stumbled, ungainly and unbalanced forward, I realised I was also watching myself from the audience. I decided to try a new way of walking to see if it would help. It did! And this was that way:

(Here's the full clip with excellent picture quality - I couldn't embed it hence the shaky-cam copy)

Bizarre. I wonder what it means?


Anyway, I'll leave you with this clip from one of my favourite films - Kinky Boots! I think you'll find it apt.

Neighbourhood witch

SP came home with a surprise the other day. A child.

Naturally, I was ecstatic. After all, we'd got nothing in for dinner, so at least we wouldn't have to fork out for a suspect take-away. I started pulling out the largest roasting dish from the back of the cupboard but SP stopped me.
"It's not to eat" he said. "You'll upset the neighbour if you do."
"Oh, she won't mind" I said, chopping an onion and some broccoli to go with the kid.
"Yes she will. He's her child!"
"Oh" I said. "Oh, bugger."

It turned out the neighbour's other child had injured herself by pulling a drawer off its runners and onto her foot. SP had just left our house to take Moom for a walk when the neighbour had careered out of her house to rush her daughter to hospital and, finding a willing 'sitter practically on her doorstep, thrust her son upon SP and drove off.

I decided I'd much rather cook dinner (we had stew with mashed potatoes and broccoli in the end) than entertain a minor, so hid busied myself in the kitchen instead. I consoled myself by telling myself how high in cholesterol children are these days.

Cusp Trek V: The Final Front Bottom

Or, The Enterprise Coincidence (as I don't think Star Trek V: The Final Frontier can be parodied to make it more ridiculous than it already is)

* ding dong *

* ding dong - ding dong *

"Mmmph. Wassat? Wassgo'non?"

* ding dong * "Evil calling!"

What?"
"Um. Avon calling?" came the reply from beyond sleep.
There was a pause then other voices spoke.

"'Evil calling?' You dolt!"
"Hey! Shut up!"
"Well. Honestly..."

Tim grumbled as he got out of bed, slid into his slippers and slumped downstairs to answer the door.
"Yikes!" There before him, beaming from ear to ear, was a certain witch of his acquaintance. Tim quickly grabbed a throw from the back of the sofa and wrapped it around his naked torso. The beaming stopped abruptly.
"Hello Timothy. Here, take that!" and I thrust my package at him.
Tim jumped back but involuntarily reached for the long, hard package.
"Sorry I didn't get this to you for your birthday, but better late than never, hmm?"
"Hmmmph. Never would have been fine" Tim muttered under his breath then wielded the parcel in my face. "What's this then?"
"That? Oh, that's nothing - I just used it for the innuendo." And I grabbed the package back and flung it aside as I swept into the room.
"Oh" Tim said with a hint of disappointment as he shut the door behind me. "So, what did you get me?"
"Nothing." Tim looked disappointed again and a little bit sad, somewhat like a recently scolded puppy. "Yet" I relented, a sucker for that particular look of his. "I'm taking you over the Cusp for a treat."
"Oh" said Tim without a trace of excitement or enthusiasm. "Great. Let me just get changed first." And he plodded off upstairs.
An almost record breaking 27 minutes later, he returned fully dressed and coiffed. I heaved myself off the sofa and handed him the cup of non-rohypnolled coffee I'd made to assist in waking him up.
"Now, mind you don't trip on the way through - We don't want to end up in the Brown Jelly Baby Universe, do we?"
After shuddering in horror, Tim sighed and followed me as I turned in a certain way to leave this universe and-
"Oh, shit."
-tripped over the package I'd thrown aside earlier. Oh, the ignominy.

~ ~ ~

I came to spread-eagled amongst a lot of humming machinery. The top of my head was really very hot and a bright light seemed to be coming from up there too. The door opposite me suddenly burst open to reveal an overly made-up, strangely dressed yet familiar looking male figure with pointy ears and eyebrows. "Tim?!" I almost shrieked. "Oh, thank gods. You've come to rescue me." Tim took one look at me and burst into raucous laughter. "Bwah hah hah hah haa! Look at you. Hah hah ha! You look ridiculous!" "Hmmmph" I was not amused. "Just get me down from here. And you're no picture yourself!"

Captain Timothy "Emo" Kirk

"What?" Disconcerted, Tim took out a communicator/compact and gazed in mild horror at his reflection in the small mirror. "Oh." "Nice eyeshadow, emo." I could barely contain my smug smile. "Wait a minute" Tim blurted out, a smug smile of his own spread across his face. "I know where we are! And I know why you look like that" and he held out his compact so I could see my own reflection.

Cloaking DeVice

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!" I had a cloaking device strapped to my head. And then reality sank in. "We're replaying The Enterprise Incident from TOS?"
"Yes. Yes we are. You must be not just a cloaking device, but 'Cloaking DeVice' and I'm Captain Kirk! I guess I'm to take you back to Starfleet to be reverse engineered."
"Mmmmmmm..." I smiled faintly, losing myself in a fantasy.
"But I have a feeling you'd like that" Tim said to himself as I certainly wasn't listening. "Ahem!"
"What?" I snapped out of my fantasy rather abruptly. "Oh. Yes."

~

Meanwhile, a few decks up in the Romulan Commander's quarters, a buxom figure materialised amidst the glitter and sparkle of a transporter beam. The woman wore an operations red Starfleet minidress uniform and held a tricorder which she used to scan the room. Her bouffant almost, but not quite, covered her Alien Queen crest - It was MJ!

* FLUSH *

The sound of rushing water behind her made MJ spin around. A door opened and a female Romulan appeared, pulling down her uniform and straightening her sash. She looked up too late, though.
MJ grabbed each side of the Romulan's face and opened her dripping maw. Little Mouth shot out straight for the Commander's forehead.
"I likes to eat people from other planets" Little Mouth said before plunging into the Romulan's skull.
"Get back up inside me Little Mouth" MJ ordered. "Yuck. What a mess. I'll have to clean this up before I can wear her skin and uniform" and she grabbed the trail of toilet paper that was hanging from the back of the late Commander's knickers and started mopping up the blood and brains.

~

Back in the engine room, Tim had disentangled me from the humming machinery with a disappointingly minimum* amount of physical contact and flipped his communicator open.
"Kirk to Enterprise."
"Enterprise. Uhura here, Captain" an unfamiliar voice replied. We both looked at each other questioningly.
"Uhura?"
"It's me, Roses. MJ buggered off somewhere, so I stepped in as Miss Scarlet's still missing."
"Oh. Umm... OK, then." Tim gave me another look. I just rolled my eyes and shrugged. "Can you get us out of here?"
"You'll have to hold on a minute, Captain, Scotty's using the transporters at the moment. I'll call you when he's finished. Uhura, out." And with that she cut the connection.

~

Romulan Commander MJ

A transporter chime from the main quarters brought MJ out of her the Romulan Commander's dressing room where she'd collapsed in a chair in exhaustion after clearing up after Little Mouth.
"What the- ?"
A figure solidified in the beam.
"Zachary Quinto Spock?!" MJ was almost beside herself with lust. As the beam faded out, MJ's face fell in recognition. "Oh. Leonard Nimoy Spock. Oh, well. You'll do."
She rushed up to the freshly coalesced Spock and flung her arms around him.
"Huh?" Spock was alarmingly cardboardy.
A voice rang out over the comm as both MJ and Carboard Cut-out Spock dematerialised: "Surprise!"

~

"Enterprise to Captain Kirk."
"Kirk here. Go ahead Uhura."
"We're ready to beam you out now."
"About time. Two to beam out."
"Two?" Roses asked.
"Yeah. I've got the cloaking device." Tim sounded less than thrilled. "Only it's not a cloaking device, it's Cloaking DeVice, A.K.A. IDV."
"Ah. Oh. Stand by."
"Well. You needn't sound so disappointed" I said. "It wasn't my fault we ended up here."
"What?!" Tim was incredulous.
I looked at him blankly for a moment before remembering that, actually, it was my fault. "Oh, yes..."
Luckily the transporter beam caught us at that awkward moment.

~

Aboard the Enterprise, Tim and I headed to the bridge on a turbolift. The doors opened on to a scene unlike any either of us recognised from Star Trek.
Sulu and Chekov were bickering at their console in front of the viewscreen.
"I told you we'd only get a small part" Beast grumbled to CyberPetra.
"Yeah" moaned 'Petra. "Small part, no action. I knew I shouldn't've bothered coming back to play Chekov again."
A rather odd looking Romulan Commander with ill-fitting skin appeared to be sucking the face off making out with Commander Scott. Or was it Commander Tucker? The fit body and Southern accent certainly indicated it was the latter. Cardboard Cut-out Spock just looked on blankly.
"Ah don't feel comfortable doin' this in front of Spock" Eros mumbled in his Texan drawl, wiping Alien drool from his face.
"Well, he just stood there doing nothing. Besides, he's made of cardboard - What does he care?" MJ retorted letting Little Mouth out for another go.
And Uhura sat in the command chair resting her chin in her hand as she leaned on the arm, also surveying the goings on around her. She acknowledged our presence and the scene with a tremendous roll of her eyes.
"This corralling the crew is hard bloody work" she sighed. "Getting them all to be where they're supposed to be is exhausting. They're like a bunch of shitting kids! I'm not sure if I want to be the Corrallerererer Officer anymore."
"You're not quitting!" Tim burst out. "We've already gone through two Uhuras, I don't think I can cope with getting used to a fourth. You're staying put." Turning to me, he continued "Some belated birthday this has turned out to be."

The End

* One has to wonder if there are any minidads to go with the minimums?

8

I stole this from the lovely Savannah. Ages ago, I might add. I'm bringing it out now to bide myselves some time.

1. Why did you start blogging? Well, it was after I came across Glitter For Brains in Spring 2005 that I thought "This looks fun. I'd like to do something like it, too." Of course, my innate laziness meant that it wasn't until October 2005 that I actually got around to creating the blog. It was also the time that I, Inexplicable DeVice, witch extraordinaire, dropped in and made the Host's life more eventful and exciting!
And more troublesome, complicated and tiring.

2. If you could travel anywhere in the world, with no restrictions on cost, where would it be, and why? I'd love to go to Australia and Canada to meet other bloggers, and to Madagascar, Papua New Guinea or the South American rainforest to be where people are not and observe nature in the raw.

3. Did you have a teacher in school that had a great influence on your life? If so, what? I did, actually. And that teacher was The Mother! She used to teach at the primary/infant school I went to. She didn't teach me, but did have a big influence on my life, what with bringing me up and all.

4. If you could spend the day with a famous person, who would it be, and what would you do? Oh, gosh. Perv overload! There's nothing to say that this had to be tasteful, so my mind is now racing with images of Connor Trinneer, Jake Gyllenhaal, James Franco, Tim et al in various states of undress. However, decency may just kick in and-

Oh. Decency did kick in.

Thinking about it, though, I don't know if I would want to spend a day with someone famous as I'd get to know them a little which would kill their mystique.

5. Toilet paper - over or under? Most definitely over. Click here for more.

6. Name one thing in your life that you would do over if possible. Well, as long as it didn't screw with the space-time continuum, I'd, umm... Well, I don't know what I'd do over? I think that everything that's happened has made me what I - we - Sorry, what we, are today, so maybe we wouldn't change anything?

7. Tell us about your pets, if any. SP and I have a Moom. She's a very pretty Weimaraner and is our dog daughter.

8. Do you live in a small town or a large town? We live in a city. And to save Tim the bother of disagreeing (again), I have taken the liberty of posting a couple of earlier responses of his as to the status of Norwich. It is a small one, though, but definitely a city due to having at least one cathedral (Norwich has two cathedrals, actually, so our city-status is doubly assured).


Oops! I forgot about that second comment.

Daintiness always wins!

With another Coven member's help, I've discovered the embarassing reason why Tim keeps spurning my advances:


So, Tim, my daintiness is now assured thanks to new quick Lux. This will be a birthday we'll both remember!




Right. All that's left to do is to check out Memory Alpha to do a little research before heading over The Cusp. One can always count on it to supply pure, sweet facts:

The Gunpowder Plop

She said she was bursting for the loo. I didn't realise she meant it literally until she exploded.




I told her smuggling gunpowder would be her undoing.