Scribblings from the Mitchy Side

Time for some spring cleaning :D

Thinking of waking up my LJ again as I realised the other day I missed it. It's just a case of getting back into the habit of posting.

Happily, commoncomitatus is doing a meme and that seemed like a good point to jump back in :D She gave me the letter D for "dusting off" :D Actually turned out quite difficult (oh irony) to come up with stuff!

Something I hate: Dusting :P Makes me sneeze and wheeze!

Something I love: Daydreaming. On long journeys, where I'm not driving, I love being able to just chill and think all sorts of things. It's very relaxing :) Of course, being me, this frequently ends up with me falling asleep.

Somewhere I've been: Denmark - spent 3 days in Copenhagen in 2014 (gagh, 2 years ago already?!?) as part of a big trip to Scandinavia. Loved it, can't wait to go back :)

Somewhere I'd like to go: I'd like to see Dubai before it collapses under the weight of its own excesses. And Dunedin in New Zealand is on my "list of places to go when I finally do that big Australia/NZ holiday" :)

Someone I know: Huh. I don't think I currently know anyone whose actual name begins with D, either first name or surname *checks phone and address book* and I'm right, I don't. How odd, I have people for practically every other letter of the alphabet but not that one :P Luckily, there's doccy and d_floorlandmine to rescue this question. And hilariously, they're connected. Nigel (Doccy) I've known since 2001, we met on Jusnoctis, an RP site run by his lovely wife halcyon_shift. Whose bestie growing up was thalinoviel who introduced me to Simon (Mr Landmine). :D

A film I like: Deadpool! Awesome movie, can't wait for it to come out on DVD. (Could also have gone with a Bond movie like commoncomitatus as "Diamonds Are Forever" with Connery is one of my faves).

1. Reply to this post with "ohh! shiny"" and I will pick six of your icons.
2. Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4. This will create a never-ending cycle of icon glee.

Usual caveat of "It helps if you actually HAVE 6 or more icons to choose from" :D

d_floorlandmine chose these:-



Drawn for me by jatg, who is an amazingly talented artist/animator. I plan to keep this icon forever so when she is the lead animator on a really big Hollywood animated film, I can brag I knew her when :D





I am not sure where this came from, which suggests I found it and stole acquired it. There are many days where only the knowledge that prison would seriously cut into my internet time prevent me from reacting like this :) Used for when I get my rant on.





I wanted a "I said HUSH!" icon, so I hunted for a suitable source pic and was thrilled to find this one :) Not one I use much but when I do, it tends to be to forestall those that know me well (and still love me) from making sarcastic remarks :D




Mark from the movie Rent, wincing in anticipation. He doesn't say the line in the movie or show but the expression just said it all for me. Usually used for something work-related, when I can see the train wreck coming but also for those days when you just know things are Not Going To Go Well. Made, as far as I can recall, by my own fair hand.





Helo from B5. *swoons happily* Stolen from, and made by, the ever lovely halcyon_shift. Occasionally still use this for TV related posts or when I'm feeling swoony :D





Ahh yes, made by commoncomitatus, after we spent that particular episode of Dr Who giggling helplessly and MST'ing the whole ep. I don't use it much but it still makes me giggle :D

Nicked happily from sabaceanbabe:-

So, comment below, and I will:

1. Tell you why I friended you.
2. Associate you with something.
3. Tell you something I like about you.
4. Tell you a memory I have of you.
5. Associate you with a character/pairing.
6. Ask something I've always wanted to know about you.
7. Tell you my favorite userpic of yours.

(If No.5 isn't apt, because you're not into that side of fandom, I'll think of something else :D Or you can suggest something.)

I have been saved of thinking of actual content for today's (leap year!) post by sabaceanbabe's timely meme :D

1. Leave a comment to this post!
2. I will give you a letter.
3. Post the names of five fictional characters whose names begin with that letter, and your thoughts on each. The characters can be from books, movies, or TV shows.

sabaceanbabe gave me the letter "P".

Now it doesn't say if the names have to be first name or surname so I'm going to cheat wildly and use a combination of both :D

( The Characters )

Edited because I can't spell "Kirsten Vangsness" to save my life. *sigh*

Because all the cool kids are doing it :D (Stolen from half my flist, too many to name)

( 2011 in Review )

Meeeeeeme! kelemvor gave me age 23 to write about. That was in 1991.

I was dating:
I wasn't. I was in my last year at Sunderland Uni and hadn't had a relationship with anyone since I broke up with my boyfriend in 1989. Also, degree finals kind of dominated the first half of the year and I was a leeetle busy :P

I wanted to be:
I had no idea, actually. I was vaguely thinking about a career in marketing or advertising. I'd already abandoned ideas of being a journalist, engineer and a librarian (although I kept circling that last). Late in the final term, I applied for a post-graduate course in computing starting the following September, and was accepted.

My best friend:
I hung around with Val Kolacs and Sheryl Hopkinson, pals from my degree course. We kept each other sane during finals :) And there was the A Team, of course: Liz C, Jon P, Mike and Chris, role playing and drinking buddies since the second year. (Jon P was the ex-bf previously mentioned....)

I lived:
For the first half of the year, I was in a large, shared terraced house in Sunderland. Nice house, but my room was freezing cold. Most of my housemates were ok but we weren't close friends. I was at home for the summer and, on moving back to Sunderland to do the post-grad, I was in another smaller shared house near the campus. This place was a hole - no-one apart from me and one other guy ever washed or cleaned anything. The gas fire in my room did nothing to keep the room warm, so you had to sit in front of it all the time to feel any heat. The only advantage was, because you couldn't leave anything in the fridge in the communal kitchen because it would get nicked, the room was cool enough that I could keep milk and butter in a cooler box :P Oh and the bathroom? Had a hole in the window where an old air vent had been removed. Imagine taking a shower in there in winter. In Sunderland. With the wind whistling down directly from the Norweigian ice flows. And people wonder why I developed my lightening fast shower routine. *shivers*

Any fellow meme sheep want an age? :)

Brief bit of actual content. Secondment is going splendidly, I'm very happy there. Furiously not thinking about having to return to old job. Rob the Furball has been a very poorly cat on and off since Christmas but now *touches wood lots* I think he's doing ok. Bless him, he's such a good natured cat, all the vets adored him :) Also one of his vets is called Rob and apparently the poor chap got a bit of stick about Rob the Vet looking after Rob the Furball :D

Right, enough content, silly meme time!

( Random meme )

Decades meme, snurched from half my flist.

March 1981: In last year of middle school in dear old Dunstable, living with my Mum and Dad in the tiny 2 bedroom bungalow I grew up in. I remember not enjoying the first part of the academic year but things had improved drastically by March and I was doing ok. I still am very grateful to my teacher, Mrs Davis, who really opened my eyes to English Literature. Less happily, my Dad had developed a Persistant Cough - this later proved to be lung cancer which took him later in the year.

March 1991: *thinks* Wow, I had to resort to counting on fingers to work this out. I was living in Sunderland, in a flat above a pub (woot!!), with Tanya and Wendy, in the second year of my English degree. This was the year I really discovered cider. Oh dear. Oh deary deary me.

March 2001: Living in Welwyn Garden City in a 2 bedroom flat, in a relationship with Ginger Mike, who lived in Cambridge. There was a fair bit of travelling :D Rob the Furball was 5 years old :) This was the first year of a long period of unemployment but I was all right with that at this point.

March 2011: Still in WGC in the same flat (16 years this year). Single, working for local government, mostly happier, definitely fatter, got a good solid ring of friends round me (you know who you all are) and looking ahead to a year of change.

March 2021: I have no idea where I'll be. The changes this year, all job related, will probably dictate a lot of what I do next and I don't know what they'll be as yet.

I do this in lieu of any interesting content, obviously :P

Stoled from the Queen of Lyrics quizzes, commoncomitatus:-

Reply to this with "[insert clever fannish thing 'cause I can't think of any]" and I'll reply with...

1. Something I'll learn about you by looking at your LJ page for 13 seconds.
2. Which colour you remind me of.
3. My first memory of you.
4. What TV character you remind me of.
5. Ask you something I've always wondered about you, and your answer has to be as vague as possible to keep the suspense.
6. My favorite thing about you.
7. Give you a weird nickname. (that won't get me very killed)
8. What's the last song I've listened to.
9. Challenge you to post this on your journal (y'know, if you want to :P)

Gods, I am so bored. My choices right now are filing, more filing, or lugging archive boxes down to sort out. So I thought I'd do a lyrics meme instead :P Name the song, the musical it's from and bonus points if you identify the character singing the line!


1) Listen I hate to break up the mood/Get to the point, begin the beguine - voluta

2) New York City! Centre of the universe! - commoncomitatus

3) He's handsome, he's young!/ Alright, he's 62/ But he's a nice man, a good catch, true? True. - commoncomitatus

4) The folks atop the ladder/Are the ones the world adores/So boost me up my ladder, Kid/And I'll boost you up yours crevette

5) You can take/You can give/Let him be/Let him live - halcyon_shift

6) You must be mistaken, I'm sure that you are/There's more than one car with stickers on. - commoncomitatus

7) Why God, why this face/Why such beauty in this place/I liked my memories as they were/But now I'll leave remembering her, just her - voluta

8) They came out West and built a lot of fences/And built 'em right across our cattle ranges! (two characters here, I'll take either name :)) - voluta

9) Where a girl and a guy with a little petty cash between them/Can be sure when they deposit no-one's seen them/Oh what bliss to sign your checks as three-o-one-two-seven

10) A touch of paint, a magic nail/Can turn a kitchen chair into a Chippendale (this is a duet - I'll take either character name :)) - commoncomitatus