The Purple Dragon Blog

Sorry it’s been so long; I was threatened with terrible fates is I went on the internet when Mum wants me, which is just about all the rare time I spend at home, and the rest of the time Dad was on here.

 Lil Sis went back to school today. She informed me that a friend of hers took her guineapig to the vet…. to find out it had menopause… which I didn’t know guineapigs got…. and I’ve had guineapigs since I was eleven…

You know the Beatles song ‘Yellow Submarine’? ‘We all live in a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine’? Three year old S. at work (whose parents listen to older music a fair bit, I gather) came in singing “We all live in a tub of margarine...” She actually thought those were the words…. Lil Sis insists on singing those lyrics now. Personally I fee that the joke is getting old after several weeks.

Have tracked several people from high school down on facebook. Interesting.

 Am thinking of doing a fictional serial on this blog as well as the usual - what do you think?

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*   “Let’s just say that if complete and utter chaos was lightning, he’d be the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armour and shouting ‘All gods are bastards’.”

– Rincewind discussing Twoflower (Terry Pratchett, The Colour of Magic)

*Dragon is minding her own business when small child wanders up*

Small child: I found a bug. Want to come see?

*Dragon sees her carrying container and surmises that she is going to go trap bug*

Dragon: No, but you can bring it to show me if you want.

*small child returns later with container. Dragon looks inside*

*blinks*

Dragon: It’s dead.

Small child: *declares* I love it.

Dragon: But it’s dead.

Small child: I shall keep it for ever and ever. *wanders away*

*Dragon blinks*

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I bought the Veronicas second album, Hook Me Up today. From what I’ve heard so far, it’s fairly good. It doesn’t have the distinctive sound of the first album that made me fall in love with it and made 4ever my yearr 12 class’s graduation anthem, but it has a sound all its own that is equally distinctive. Do I like it? Yes. Do I like it as much as the sound of the first album? I don’t know yet. Probably not. Love it all the same.

I think at the centre where I work we must have the most indestructible fish ever. Let me explain. In one of the rooms with the older children we have a small fishbowl with two goldfish in it. They don’t do much, nor do they elicit much interest, which is probably a good thing for them because things the kids are interested in tend to either get chewed, broken, or dropped in some wet substance such as paint, milk, etc. Nonetheless they find themselves subject to a range of, erm, interesting incidents probably outside the range of experience of most goldfish. The very first week I started working, the fishbowl was full of white stuff. Some child, it had transpired, had apparently disliked their yoghurt and wondered if the fish would like it better. A few weeks back one child climbed up and somehow got into the kitchen, stole the fish food, and emptied a month’s worth into the bowl. Piles of fish food sat on every surface inside the bowl and came drifting off the fish as they moved, floated near the surface of the water and collected at the bottom of the bowl. Disintegrating fish food clogged the water. Once the bowl had been cleaned out, fish were fine. A week or so ago I walked in one morning to find the fishbowl full of… bubbles. I walked over for a closer look and watched as the fish placidly opened and shut their mouths, sending amusing little bubbles up to the surface. Wish were a bit lethargic for a bit after that, but soon recovered. Superfish, I tell you. Thank God we don’t have hamsters. We’d have gone through five Mr Fluffys by now, at least.

Have I ever mentioned skippyslist.com, otherwise known as ‘The 213 Things Skippy is No Longer Allowed to Do in the U.S. Army’? No? Gosh, what a tremendous oversight. Well, it’s a blog by a guy in the army which not only has the list that gives the blog its name, but also hilarious blog entries like this one, and this one. Yes, the list inspired the ‘50 things I am no longer allowed t odo at Hogwarts’ list - but unlike that one, Skippy’s list is true. *scared mindboggle*

I don’t know how often I’m going to be update guys, coz it’s been hard as it is, and I’m going to be working even more days a week than before, and I’ll probably be working through the Christmas holidays. (ah boo.) I’ll try to update whenever I can though, coz I loves yous all! *Loki muse hits Dragon over back of the head because of her grammar*

Tried to post a highly amusing image, but my connection apparently won’t let me do that while I’m downloading. *sigh* *curses dialup*

I’ve done a new blog header, which I will try and upload when I’ve finished this post. Wish me luck. *crosses fingers*

Bought some Pernod today. Love that stuff. Viewed the newest Potter Puppet Pals videos. Laughed hysterically. Went shopping for a new car. Listened to my mp3 player. It’s been a quiet week.

I don’t think I mentioned it, but in between everything else I do I have just begun volunteering at the local library (the goal being to decide whether or not to get a library qualification)  and for a few weeks now have become a Girl Guides assistant leader. The girls are doing a musical at the moment, using songs from the movie High School Musical; I find myself glad that there is only about two more rehearsals left.  Those songs are highly annoying.

I’ve also discovered some all-natural cordial syrups, Alchemy Classic Cordials. I bought a bottle of ‘LOVE’ cordial; it’s lime & rose petal flavoured and it is lovely. If you’re a rose-water fan, this is definitely the cordial for you. The bottles are quite pretty, too.

As you can see, I’ve updated the blog. I found that I was getting sick of the brown, and the lack of my own image header has always saddened me. I’m sticking with the default image for now (well, sort of), but a custom image header is in the works.

Finally, some Angus-the-cat news; he hasn’t been to our house for quite a while, since Dad offended him, but he bit the neighbours toddler son and they now refer to him as Fungus.

For anyone who might want to link me, here are some banners for this blog. Please, if you use them, save them and upload them on your site. I don’t have enough bandwidth for people just to use the current address.

Large Banner!

http://www.geocities.com/alexsuniverse/banner1.jpg

Small Banner!

http://www.geocities.com/alexsuniverse/size.jpg

Haven’t posted for ages… sorry. Will try to improve my posting rate. In the meantime, wanna look at… cats that look like Hitler? 

 I’m in the common room again. I’m wearing one of my new shirts, a long, skin-tight black one. It’s got a version of the intel inside logo on it. How does it differ? Well, it’s bright red, the bubble has little devil-horns on each side and it says evil inside rather than intel inside. I picked it up at Supre when I went on one of my periodic shopping spree last week.

Have I done any other pointless shopping? Yes. I got a keyring which has the 2005 Doctor Who logo in pewter, and a small nifty book on Latin phrases for today. It’s called X-treme Latin: All the Latin you need to know for surviving the 21st century.

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COUNTRY SONGS:

Si Dies Hodiernus Esset Piscis, Reicerem

If today was a fish I’d throw it back

Mater Cape Malleum, Musca Sedet in Capite Patris

Mother get the hammer, there’s a fly on Papa’s head

***** 

MESSAGES FOR YOUR PC:

Si denuo congeles, confestim ibis in fossam purgamentorum

If you freeze one more time, you’re going straight to the landfill

Assume plicam damnatam, o tu moles muscaria muscerdarum

Download the goddamn file, you bug-ridden piece of s***

***** 

MISCELLANY:

Has epistulas debitorum solutionem pscentes aperirem, sed metuo ne bacilli anthracis insint

I’d open these bills, but I’m afraid they may contain anthrax

Tritis nuntio Martios descendisse et, eheu, truculentos esse, sed laetus nuntio illos odisse Arabes oleumque octanum meiere

The bad new is, the martians have landed and boy, are they mean;

the good news is they hate Arabs and piss gasoline!

Basia basiliscum meum

Kiss my basilisk

*****

ONE FOR THE TREKKIE OR STARGEEK:

Scutorum notstrorum potestatis remanet solummodo quarta pars, et istae scintillae ridiculae ex omnibus claviaturis gubernatoriis evolant!

Our shield are down to 25 percent and those stupid sparks are coming out of all the control panels!

***** 

AND FINALLY , MY FAVORITE:

Sicine? Nunc age, tibi nuntium erroris habeo, stuprator- mox improprie sopieris malleolo

Yeah? Well I’ve got a message for you, f***head - you’re about to be shut down improperly with a sledgehammer.

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My second favorite is Si Dies Hodiernus Esset Piscis, Reicerem - in fact, I think I’ll use it as the tagline for this blog, replacing my personal motto of Furtif si possible, fort si nécessaire.

I found the blog of a young writer trying to get her books published. Adventures in Writing is here. Once I get a book completely written and published and I know the material can’t be stolen, then I will start blogging about my writing. But my mum is paranoid about my stuff being stolen. So yeah, no websites or blogs about it.

Oh, for those of you who heard about the novel at the Sith Lord blog: it’s very nearly finished, I only have about a chapter and a half more to go, I just need to write the final battle and the ending. Then the editing phase starts, although I’ve already done heaps of editing on the earlier parts (whenever I had writers block I’d sit down and edit what I’d already written). I tell you what, boy will I be glad when I’ve finished this. This is the 6th year I’ve been working on this thing. It’s not the best book - I’m writing far better stuff now - but it is reasonably interesting, if somewhat rambling, and I’ve put so much time and effort into hammering it out that I’m really quite fond of it now.

Well, last night I wrote a nice long post about various things, including my new computer and how I was storing my new mobile phone in a sock, but apparently mocking the Demonbuster site was a silly thing to do, because my post was attacked by blog demons and vanished irretrievably. They also stole the editing sidebar so that I am having to type html code to put links and stuff in. Demonbuster warned me that things like this would happen, but did I listen? No. All the same, you’ve got to admit that people claiming that the Paisley Print Pattern may harbour demons and that the Narnia books are evil are kind of hard to believe, right? Yeah.

Although I must admit that if they could tell me a bit about my poltergeist, I might actually listen.

I’ve been trying to find a better format for my site and I have found this one. It’s much neater and cleaner than the grassy one. I only wish I could make the tagline appear in italics. For those who are interested, it’s my personal motto, furtif si possible, fort si nécessaire, or basically sneaky when possible, strong when necessary. I used babelfish to translate it though, so the syntax and that might be slightly off. I could have asked my Mum or sister to translate it for me, but I was afraid that they would want an explanation of the reason for having this cryptic phrase translated.

A Book Meme

Number of books I own:

Oh boy. Tricksy. Well over a hundred, I would say.

Last books I bought:

“Undead and Unemployed,” by Mary Janice Davidson, and “Who Built the Moon?” by some guy. It was on special.

Last books I ‘acquired’:

“The Book of Lies,” by James Moloney. (Did I spell that right?) It’s my sister’s, and I borrowed it without asking.

Last book I read:

“Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel,” by Scott Adams. What I privately think of as “The Muggle Slytherin Guide.”

Five books that mean a lot:

“Sophie’s World,” by Jostein Gaarder, because it really got me interested in philosophy and another sort of thinking when I was about fourteen;
My original copy of “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone,” because even though it is falling apart because I once read it in the shower, it was a wonderful new reading experience for me at the time;
“I, Robot,” by Isaac Asimov;
“The Secret Life of Plants,” because it is simply amazing;
and I’ll add more when I think of them.

One book that I would like to burn:

A Reader’s Digest compendium-thing from 1977 that I picked up second-hand. Their concept of the dinosaurs appearance back then was truly awful amf the illustrations in this book only heighten that. Being something of a dinosaur nut it pains me immensely just to know these inaccurate things exist. I mentioned setting it on fire under the full moon and dancing around it to my Dad, but he said I should keep it because it offers a valuable look in how our concepts of how dinosaurs looked has evolved over time. Whatever. I’d still like to set this thing on fire.

People I think deserve this kind of trouble:

Anne Arkham, because her blog rocks, Sithsnoopy, and anyone who actually decides to read my blog.

   Hi. Welcome to my blog. I’m a purple dragon that masquerades as a tall, thin, green-eyed blonde completing her first year of an IT degree. Right now I’m sitting in the first year IT students common room, which has bright green walls, computers, some couches, some tables (but oddly enough no chairs, so that you have to wait until someone at a computer goes to grab something and you can race forward and steal their chair) some whiteboards, a tv and an x-Box. In between classes this is where all the first year IT students hang out, so it is a den of wonderful oddities. Only the other day I walked in to find the tables upside down and arranged into a small sort of maze, in the middle of which stood several students wielding small golf clubs and playing mini-golf. In the middle of the common room. Yes, it’s a weird and wonderful world here ladies and gentlemen.

Apart from computers, my interests and hobbies include fanfiction, blog-surfing, Star Wars, Doctor, Who, and Dilbert. I occasionally stop to eat and, when my insomnia is not preventing it, sleep.