Dragonball J

Aha! At last, Tsam is vanquished! The mighty orb of invulnerability attacks! I have never seen a lizard take to the dragon ball as quickly as Jac has.

Jacques is great to watch when he's in there, rumbling round in there like a gladiator in a ball cage - he's totally at home in there. White belly, white beard, no stress marks, ballsy attitude - gave Tsam some serious thinking time. Tsammy didn't know what to do about his least favourite, smallest rival suddenly developing the power to mow him down like a steamroller. He ran right up the other end of the room with little Jac chasing him, and cowered!

He's also figured out that it grants him the power of invincibility. And you can smush an enemy twice your size.

Sandy has worked out that giving the ball a firm rap will annoy Jac - and Jac can't do anything about it. So he did what any angry dragon does when disgusted at another dragon. He pooped at Sandy.

Unfortunately, this backfires somewhat, when you are in a globe.

He was glad to be let out.

Splish Splash Dragon Bath

They are being remarkably well behaved - only Hyphen has had a few warning splashes and, let's face it, he never remembers that he is supposed to behave at bath time.

Mocha had a huge drink and then went round testing if the water tasted different near each dragon.

Nice and clean and rehydrated. Once Tsam is done in his bath, we will give the tanks a quick go-over too.

When I opened the basket for carrying lizards in bulk, somehow Hyphen had managed to get himself pinned down by Mocha, Sandy and Jam. I don't know how or why, but he looked pretty happy about it.

Well, the one eye that was the only body part not under a dragon looked pretty happy about it. Bless him. He doesn't know his own name, but he's a lovely little brick for brains.

Also, in other news, despite not having actually done it in this house, Tsam has remembered how to do stairs in general on his own.

He has walked all the way from our bedroom, across the landing, down the stairs, through the hall and into the living room... and up the slope into his own house.

He is a very smart dragon.

This is why I trust him to be out on his own - he can manage.

When you find a mess like this, you know there's only one possible living being in the world that could be responsible... Yeah.

That mess would be Mocha finding the calcium.

I don't know what it is about Mocha and calcium - but she can't resist it. She gets plenty, and multivitamins... But if she spots the tub, she goes after it.

Lesson learned: don't leave the tub on the ledge. She can get into it.

I have officially found my favourite Chinese restaurant.

This place is fab - and they don't hold back. Low cost, big portions, plenty of chilies and flavour... they don't even skimp on the more expensive bits. My kung po is amazingly mouthwarm and packed with chunky, tender bamboo shoots and huge, crisp disks of water chestnut...

The crispy chili chicken is very crunchy and warm, the chow mein noodles were firm and the mushrooms in great quarter lumps...

And I don't know where to start on the duck rolls. The pancakes were crisp, the meat tender and flavoursome, the hoi sin delightful and the Thai dipping sauce - fabulous. I couldn't tell if the rolls were temperature hot or spice hot! :D

Happyhappyhappyburrrp.

One of the world's finest, most successful and most respected pirates... was a woman.

Cheng Shih was purchased from a "flower boat" (a brothel), tied up and hauled onto ship. The captain released her to get a better look - and she laid into him like a wildcat. Apparently, he thought that this feisty woman was pretty epic, fell in love and they got married!

She demanded her own fleet, and to keep her own captured treasure - and soon became his greatest rival on the seas, landing more booty than he! Sadly, he was killed in a storm - and lo, the fleets came in to port and bickered over who would be the new pirate lord.

Cheng walked in, threatened off all the competition and took control. In less than three years under her Red Flag, she took the fleets to over 1000 ships strong, and became the most formidable force on the oceans - outmanning most other countries entire navies.

She also shrewdly diversified from just pillage to protection, blackmail, spying and extortion; even developing good working relationships with farmers to provide her men with good food.

At the end of her reign, she was even offered a universal pirate amnesty in exchange for peace. Of the 80,000 men in her fleet, less than 400 were punished. They ALL got to keep their booty, and most of them were given good military jobs!

Cheng went on to open a gambling house with her husband, and passed away as a 69 year old grandmother. A truly remarkable pirate.

If it has lots of species of insect - does that make it a buggery?

Well, the nice weather is here and with some money left on the budget, thanks to my lovely grandparents for their kindness with "pocket money". Yes, I know I'm 27 - I have pointed this out to them several times. I get that look if I try to refuse though. I'm very grateful to them for it. :)

As a result, I have treated myself to a multifunction composter.

The Wormery have this little beauty going for £52 (that's including postage) - which is a nice little bargain: the next best I found was only three trays high, and £72.

I've picked this over a standard composter because it has a leach-away tap (for producing liquid fertiliser!), is insect friendly if I actually want to put worms in, will work efficiently as a standard composter if I don't, and I can put it in the dark, concreted corner of the garden that isn't much use for anything else.

Liquid fertiliser, solid compost, recycling food waste, using the footing to make a small animal hideaway for frogs etc and maximising useage of my small plot of garden space.

Anyone know where I can get a nice bench? And a gate? And I need to work out how to fix the brick (or to buy a whole new) barbecue... My garden will be functional when I'm done.

Oh boy, what a day.

Work was ... tricky.

Besides a couple of tricky queries to programme and a couple of problems to solve, I had not one, but three groups of people come in to notify me of family member customers whom had passed away today - two groups arrived at the same time and took some careful juggling.

Luckily, my boss predicted this (being as I am the only trained Estates staff member in my branch) and sent my colleague in to have a speed-training session with me whilst I handled a case. They were a truly lovely family too, organised, jovial, kind - despite the sad circumstances, they were a genuine pleasure to work with.

This meant my colleague was able to take the less-tricky second case whilst I took on the hard one. I can't give you details, but it wasn't pretty. I did my best, and I hope things get easier for them.

So yeah, that was... interesting. But not nearly as interesting as hometime.

Grabbed veg on my roar through Marks&Sparks (not because I'm posh. It's the direct route through town for me!) and milk on the way past Costcutters (because I'm not posh and it's a fair price!). Turned the corner on the home stretch and frowned at a big bundle of something in the middle of the path.

Figured it was something the chap at 122 was moving and maybe he'd nipped in to grab the phone or something.... then I realised it was a person.

Yes, there was a dude sat in the middle of the path, hanging on to his ankle, twizzled up on himself like a hedgehog. The chap from 122 popped out and confirmed the fella had parked himself on the floor, curled up awkwardly and stayed there.

I called the ambulance and we carefully tried to unravel him. He made a grunty snorting noise and curled himself back up - dropping a baggie of white tablets as he did so. (They were about a cm long, oval, 4mm wide, with a break line in the middle.)

I have no idea what he was smacked out on, but his pupils were like pins and apparently his face was really itchy. The ambulance chaps were less than impressed but, as he was in really unstable condition and lapsing in and out of consciousness, they took him away.

So. Yeah. That's about one a month so far: we've had the poor diabetic old chap in the middle of town collapsed on Valentines (with his big bunch of roses for his wife, to apologise for being staggering drunk!), we had the raging girls in the middle of my street (see a post of a few weeks back) and now this chap.

Got home, made layer veg pasta, advised a rescuer on how to deal with a seriously sick bearded dragon, added three more appointments to my calendar (a quiz on Thurs, work's night out later in the month, my father visiting at the weekend), confirmed that the weird scary thing that turned up at the university IS actually mine and, now it's coming up to 9pm, I think I'm caught up.

I've been doing some thinking.

I have come to the conclusion that I'm doing a few things wrong - and that I need to fix these issues.

Problems:

a) I keep seeking validation from others.
a) I keep expecting my father to make an expression of "I'm proud of you".
a) I keep procrastinating over things that I can do - putting them off for no good reason.

Improving:

b) I have got much better at saying "I don't know" and trying to learn (at work, etc) as well as taking responsibility for and admitting and fixing my own errors.
b) I have got much better at expressing my concerns and my faults. (This post - made public, deliberately, is an effort to work on this.)
b) I have realised I have pretty good eyebrows. Not sure why, but they're nice.
b) I have got used to the idea that I'm always going to be tall and broad (even if I was five stone lighter, my shoulders and hips are always going to be this wide! And I'd be anorexic.)
b) I'm pretty sure ALL people have problem finding clothes that actually fit right, and that it only LOOKS like other size groups of shoes look more exciting than what's available in my range in the shop...

Further improvements required:

c) I need to find more joy (even in the boring bits) in my job.
c) I need to accept that my father and I simply aren't compatible.
c) I need to make a better effort to connect with the rest of my family - more regularly. (With thanks to Mum and Nan for their efforts as always - it is always appreciated!)
c) I need to remember the stuff I don't look forward to usually turns out to be not nearly so bad. And is usually satisfying at the end.
c) I need to learn to accept gifts, and not feel guilty if I can't return the favour. My family are giving me gifts because they can, not because they expect the same in return, not because they're the Mafia and I owe them a favour! (Though I'd never refuse a request if I can help!)
c) I need to stop procrastinating about joining the gym. I know it's bloody expensive, but I do need to take better care of myself. See, I'm doing it now.

Just So

So, we got to talking a few days back - and I learned something interesting. Whilst Himself had Gameboys, Nintendos and more as a child - he never had the Just So Stories.

So I'm reading them on an evening, out loud, proper bedtime stories, to make up for not having Just So in the past.  (Just as it should be, Best Beloved, do you see?)

We just did my favourite "Stickly-Prickly, Slow-and-Solid and the Painted Jaguars" and I'm looking forward to telling him the tale of "How The Alphabet Was Made", but not before "The First Words", of course. Ooh, and "How the Leopard Got His Spots"...

If you want to join in and share the wonderful timeless tales, Project Gutenberg has them on file for free!

Cat fight

Well, that was exciting.

Woke up at 4:20 to the sound of screaming (thought it was Rich snoring at first!) and went out to discover two girls lying in the middle of my road, hair extensions everywhere.

The nice couple from down the road came out and helped separate them, and the blonde stormed off screaming and shouting - fortunately in the wrong direction; they were quite lost.

(They'd have to be, to end up here from town!)

My goodness, she was only 16. Smashed out of her head, having spent the night at a gay bar..

I called the cops, took the other to find her bag and the other half of her broken glasses (seems I got lucky and picked the rational one, a little older, just trying to care for her off-the-rails friend) before bringing her back here for a cup of sweet tea and a chat with the local bobbies.

She reckons her friends drink was probably spiked.

Well, normally this is a very quiet street - it is just far enough from town and obscure-direction enough not to get hassle.

These girls had been visiting friends at the flats, about two minutes walk away, when the blonde one got into trouble.

Turned out there was a pretty mighty fist fight, and she ended up on our street, where her friend was trying to stop her running off further, and call the blonde ones mother.

Blonde was making SO much noise, I thought someone was in serious trouble - and, idiot I am, I got up and headed right for it.

The less-than-classy lady just down the road stuck her head out and just hollered at them: not particularly conducive to resolving the issue. More, adding to the problem of waking others up. 

I'm probably going to get a really weird reputation, having police round at 4:30 am.

Jumping Jacques

If Jacques previous owner was even interested, well, heck, he wouldn't recognise his dragon any more. He's doubled his weight in six months, nice and slowly, to 321g. He has headfats, his spine is no longer visible, his tail has bulked out and his muscles are in much better shape. He'll always be on the short side due to malnutrition in his formative months, but oh, he is so much a different lizard.

The last few weeks has brought about an amazing change in his attitude too; after months of aggression, snapping and tail whipping, he has mellowed out. He has got happy colours, and only flinches if someone does something he's not expecting. He still gets grumpy if you tickle his earspikes, but he's starting to chill out about everything else - including people touching his tail.

Jac's even getting the hang of this "being hugged" thing, and is starting to understand the proper way to be picked up - under the chest rather than over his back. It's dawning on him that it feels much more secure and less like someone's going to eat him.

David and the Dragons...

So, on Monday, I sent a letter out, thanking someone very dear to me though I have not had the pleasure of meeting them in person. I thanked them for inspiring me to be a better person, educating me and ultimately leading me to discover my passion for bearded dragons.

I sent two identical photos of said dragons, one blank, and one with a little information about each lizard on the back. (And a compliment from Tsam). I must have caught him at home, because I was surprised to see an envelope with my name on it so soon.

Lo and behold, Sir David Attenborough has (incredibly kindly) sent back the spare photo with his autograph on! How awesomesauce is that?! Hehe, Sir David Attenborough knows what my lizards looks like and their names...

I can't get over giggling at how cool that is!

Interesting thing of the day: "Micromort".

Ronald A. Howard, a risk analyser, coined the term - a micromort is a one-in-a-million chance of death, and it's a handy probability calculator as well as risk definer.

Smoking 1.4 cigarettes or living 2 months with a smoker is one micromort. Other one micormort units include living for 15 years within 20 miles of a nuclear power plant (cancer from radiation), drinking seventy pints of beer per year, and even dying from black lung disease after spending one hour in a coal mine...

Bad luck if you live in New York - just two days there is also equal to one micromort too.

Apparently the average price of a micromort in 2009 was $50 - the amount people are willing to pay to add extra safety features, on things such as driving a car, to reduce their micromort rating by one.

Furthermore, there's such a thing as a "microlife": that's 30 minutes off your life expectancy. Smoking two cigarettes has a cost of one microlife, as does every 5 kilograms over your ideal weight...

You can calculate your micromort probability rating for a variety of things here: http://www.deathriskrankings.com/MortStats.aspx

More fascinating insights on micro- lives and morts are available here: http://understandinguncertainty.org/microlives

Box-eyed Beardies...

Tsam has been watching Sir David Attenborough 's Ice Planet on Eden Channel with utter fascination.

Every time a new scene catches his attention, he twitches slightly as he adjusts to get a better look at it. The worn boulders in the ice field worried him slightly - he wasn't sure what it was.

All the lizards like watching David Attenborough's shows - they can see the TV from their tanks, and I can confirm they pay more attention to his programmes (particularly the Life series) than any other!

Haha! As I'm typing this, a different show came on. Tsam has realised it is no longer Sir David presenting/narrating... and he has lost interest! He has snuggled up on my shoulder to sleep now his favourite programme has finished!

Lawl! He started kicking me until I turned this other chap off... Funny sod.

Sir David Attenborough , I hope you're flattered - these dragons have declared that you are the best. They're also sending you a letter!

Christmas Carols.