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Tera Daisy Spawn / Beth McMillan
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| Welcome to my Blog |
[31 Dec 2030|11:59pm] |
These are the insane things I scribble about my day. Feel free to take a look around.
Peek at my User Info to read my concise summary of myself. Please friend me if you like what you see, or comment on one of my entries below.
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| Please redirect my mail |
[22 Jan 2009|07:17pm] |
I've moved! Bored of the Livejournal advert madness, check out The Beth Project! Uh, and at some point I'll give it an actual design. Still love you all, still reading blogs regularly.
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| I made you a pretty but I eated it |
[14 Dec 2008|07:33am] |
 I made a pretty! You need Python and Pygame to see it. It's just a little graphical program I wrote to learn the basics of Python.
So I'm at home. Until September. Expect to see a lot more Python and a lot more bollocks from me.
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| I want to wake up with the rain falling on a tin roof |
[26 Aug 2008|11:32pm] |
So earlier I was trying to do something* on my computer. In a brief moment of inattention, I got one single digit wrong during the process. One. Approximately six hour later, I've finally managed to get it to boot up again. YAY!
Yes, the thing I was attempting to do was largely pointless and I lost about ten episodes of Black Books in the process, but this has been a pretty awesome afternoon. What? I like to learn. Even if said learning is through massive, massive catastrophes.
The rest of the day, I was at work, doing worky things (making appointments, generally contributing to the inefficiency of the NHS, eating Crunchie bars), and that is what I have been mainly doing of late. I quite like having a job, it forces me to spend my free time more interestingly. Speaking of which: I went to London Zoo on Sunday! It was pretty much the best thing ever. I would like an emu. I would also like to live with Emma and Laura when I grow up, they are the most awesome people ever.
I've also been on holiday and stuff, and I temporarily don't have a nose piercing, and I have a very exciting new wardrobe in my bedroom, and I'm sure there are many other things in my life that I have not divulged.
So, to sum up: today I have an undeserved feeling of accomplishment, and a longing for large flightless birds.
* moving Ubuntu from a Wubi install to its own partition, if you must know.
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| It's tragic; you tried to cut yourself in half |
[27 Jun 2008|07:28pm] |
I did not realise that the pilot of Jonathan Creek had Giles in leather trousers.
I don't think that's something I really wanted to realise, come to think of it. Alan Davies is really quite immensely adorable when he's being all geeky and duffel-coat-ey, especially when you contrast it to his lovable-buffoon QI persona.
Today I have invented a drink: the Beth Twist (basically pear cider shandy). I shall copyright it and grow fat from the profits.
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| Who's on first? |
[27 May 2008|11:43am] |
Been meaning to watch that since it was mentioned on Studio 60. Very glad I did.
Parents visiting today. Need to tidy. Argh. (Also, they don't know I've got a nose piercing yet. So, yeah, that's going to be a fun first impression).
Right. Need to tidy.
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| D is for delightful, and try and keep your trousers on |
[08 May 2008|06:51pm] |
Fromage frais with flapjack-that-was-a-bit-too-crumbly sprinkled on top of it: dessert of the gods.
I just managed to do my slightly-too-large pile of washing up and then immediately create another, slightly larger pile. Clever.
I think I've forgotten how to do maths since I've stopped doing it all the time. It took me approximately a year[citation needed] to work out how to do the serial dilution calculations for labs this afternoon, which was rather frustrating. I also managed to confuse the hell out of my (really, really cute) demonstrator by doing it wrong the first time and being unable to explain what I'd done or why I'd done it. Fortunately I managed to work it out and finish pretty quickly anyway, so I could get home and, er, completely fail to do any work. Genius.
Admittedly the only proper work I've got is a lab report about the antibiotic properties of honey (boring), based on a series of practicals (from the mad lecturer who thinks diseases originate from space) testing the antibiotic properties of various things, including green potato skins and some completely random types of mould. Turns out, most of those don't have any antibiotic properties whatsoever (what are the odds), nor do any of them happen to produce penicillin (something we also tested for). Gosh how surprising. Manuka honey was the only thing that actually did anything, hence my write-up.
Aside from that madness, er... SUNSHINE! IT'S EVERYWHERE, AAAAAAA. I can wear shorts and eat ice creams! And have been, it's rather lovely. I'm beginning to miss the amount of grass that I took for granted back home, seems like in Sheffield people have to grab every square inch in this sort of weather.
Blar.
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| Today, I |
[30 Apr 2008|09:36pm] |
Spent most of the morning:
destabilising the military-industrial complex at the university careers fair with this happy lot
(Faces obscured to protect the irretrievably guilty)
The indymedia article puts it better than I could:
Two bed sheets - £5
photocopied anti-recrutment leaflets - £7
clipboard and pens - £3
Stall at Sheffield University Job Fair courtesy of Barclays Bank - £1020
Blockading an army recruitment stall and being rewarded with a free platform to openly propagate your anti-militarist, classist ideas - priceless Signed:
the Google Maps "Bike There" Feature Request Petition here.
Thought about baking:
brownie roll-out cookies from Smitten Kitchen, but didn't really have time or for that matter any eggs.
Became insanely frustrated by:
Was very impressed by:
this picture that is far too large to put here.
And then I made an LJ entry. The end. Night all.
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[26 Mar 2008|04:58pm] |
 Well, it's not a photo but it is something I've been working on, so there ya go. Today, my day has mainly been about Zeppelins - not for any good reason, I just think they're neat. Hoping for a resurgence when the airlines start being all "oops, we destroyed the planet, here's a dirigible." Which I assume they won't, but it would be awesome.
My brother has promised to build me one if he ever gets bored of astrophysics and goes into engineering.
And yes, the next time I get hold of a long helium balloon for some reason, I will be attaching cardboard fins and a small , elastic-band-driven propellor to it. Even if it is one I've stolen from a small child.
(Oh, and I can't remember where I got this doll base from, so if someone knows, please tell me...
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| Scattered polaroids and sprinkled words around your collar in the long run |
[25 Mar 2008|10:07pm] |
Oh, I'm still here. It's holiday time for me, so I'm enjoying my Easter break with gusto and much chocolate. I've been a bit busy doing some webby stuff I might talk about later when it's finished, and completing much of my very important lying-around-watching-TV which I have been slacking off with so appallingly recently, due to the fact I don't have a TV.
My lovely laptop Cecil, who decided wilfully to break at some point during last term - leaving me with my brother's laptop and a sense of angry futility - has now been restored to my loving arms, much chastened, with new outsides, and is just as wonderful as I remembered. All my programs! My rainbow background! Donkey Kong Country! Since this happened, on a recommendation from Etsy for Everyone, I've installed Mozyhome Free, which I so far am cautiously happy with. It's a backup utility, free for up to 2gb, which runs automatically and has a nice sort of integrated thing going on, where it comes up as an extra drive in "My Computer". Like I said, like it so far. While I'm here recommending programs (and, let's be honest, making a record of them so I'll remember them the next time I do something egregious to my computer), I might as well make a list of all the things I missed while I was Cecil-less.
- Rainlendar, a cute little desktop calendar (mine's see-through!)
- Snes9x, a SNES emulator, for which you can find Donkey Kong Country, Super Mario World and many other ridiculously awesome roms.
- Feedreader, an RSS reader which lets you read feeds offline.
And a couple of online things that saved me during this time: del.icio.us and Google Docs. Although I'm sure you already knew that.
As for the rest of my holiday, I've mainly been enjoying the chance to have a break without feeling I have to be working or activisting. Don't get me wrong, I love my course and my causes but sometimes one just has to lie back and think of England spend time on other things. Like climbing on giant trees that have for some reason fallen over in East Court (yes, that was my morning), doing web design and reading.
Also: a bit of writing. I've missed fanfic. I finally got around to writing chapter three of my Cutler Beckett/Jack Sparrow piratefic, The Price, and I'm reasonably happy with how this little story is going so far - if anyone can read it for me and give some concrit (Smithy, I'm lookin' at you, all pretty in your fancy dress) Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Rating G, PG-13 and R respectively. And yes, I do plan to make Chapter 4 NC-17 if I'm not too embarrassed.
I was intending to take some photos to embellish this particular entry in my life's chronicles, but sadly my phone (and thus my camera) is running low on batteries and my charger, alas, is in Sheffield (of all places). But there you go.
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| Holy crap! |
[27 Feb 2008|12:40pm] |
Earthquaaake! Whee, never been in one of those before. I woke up just before it started, so I pretty much thought it was a dream until I heard people outside saying "Did you feel that?" "Earthquake!" to each other in bemused voices. Very cool. Not for the guy that broke his pelvis, but still.
In other news, I'm on indymedia again! If you take a look at some of the photos/videos I'm wearing a red beret, looking immensely bored and occasionally holding the banner (which I made, incidentally). Also at some point you can see me handing someone some cake. I recommend the video with the police officer in, since he is highly amusing. "I don't know what they do in there, but it is a legitimate activity." Lol.
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| Ugh |
[24 Feb 2008|10:23pm] |
Just came across this deeply unpleasant article on the usually reasonable Lifehack. A snippet:
"I’m amused by those who suggest that obesity is primarily an education problem, when in reality, it is (for the majority) a self-control problem. Self control: yes, that crazy, outdated notion I’ve spoken of many times before. We are inundated with education but we choose not to learn. Real ‘learning’ would have resulted in a large-scale positive change in behavior, and of course, decline in obesity levels."
So naturally I replied:
"You seem to be ignoring the fact that the highest levels of obesity occur within the working class, i.e. the area of society with probably the lowest level of education, the highest (and cheapest) availability of junk food and the least time for the middle-class pursuit of self-improvement. If there has been an upswing in obesity, it is because there has been a change in conditions, not because people have suddenly become incredibly lazy. The massive, multi-million-dollar fast food companies advertise to children from the word go - people are innoculated with the idea that there are foods you should eat because they are healthy (but boring) and there are foods you shouldn't eat but should want to eat because they are unhealthy but delicious. The power of advertising must not be underestimated in people's relationship with food. There may be a million reasons why someone might overeat, and refusing to examine them in favour of assigning blame just sidesteps the root of the issue. This narrow view of obesity as an individual problem, rather than a society-wide change allows overweight people to be further stigmatised and the problem to be sidelined into not being the responsibility of anyone but the person in question, allowing wider society, the food giants and the government to turn a blind eye and create a new group of social pariahs."
Anyone else's thoughts?
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| Wish you hadn't blown my mind and killed the surprise |
[24 Feb 2008|12:51am] |
I just went to a party which consisted of a room full of people who all knew my dad. That sort of thing isn't actually supposed to happen be fun, but it did was. I also spent approximately half of it talking about Colin.
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[03 Feb 2008|08:19pm] |
Chris is currently playing thirty-three simultaneous games of online Risk. Some things just should not be allowed.
( middle name meme )
Was planning on seeing Taxi Driver tonight but for some reason the showing was cancelled. Woe. Instead, I'll see if I can find a working computer somewhere to watch Torchwood on (which I still haven't seen, which is driving me mad). Revision is going ploddingly - still, my exams only last until Friday; and I do, after all, only have to pass. And then I can go back to sleeping through lectures and spending my weekends baking sticky things. That said, I did make roast potatoes today, for the first time ever. They were AWESOME. <3 Next week: yorkshire puddings. Watch this space.
Yesterday I went down to Barnsley for some anti-BNP leafleting and standing-around-in-the-freezing-cold-ing. The BNP hold a stall in the town centre every Saturday (scary-looking burly men in high-visibility jackets), with copies of The Voice of Freedom and, amusingly, The Daily Express. Yay nationalism, indeed. I had a look at their website when I got home - they seem to have removed the bit about harsher penalties for women whose rape allegations are overturned and the part saying that homosexuality should be kept behind closed doors. Interesting.
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[27 Jan 2008|12:50am] |
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Reading this just made me very happy.
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[16 Jan 2008|05:55pm] |
 Well. Haven't been up to a lot, to be honest with you. Don't know why I'm posting, but there you go.
This photograph pretty much sums it up; books, more books, and scribbling in my diary. Also watching lots of Dave and unexpectedly having to get a new phone, which was initially quite annoying, but is actually quite cool. It has a camera and everything! Which is, as you can see, quite grainy, but still a camera. Which takes photos. Which can then be transmitted onto a computer. I've also managed to fill it with games from GetJar, so all in all, hooray.
Er, what else? I'm going back to uni on Saturday. I'm doing a lead-off on feminism at a Socialist Party meeting in a couple of weeks, which is scary. I'm going to see Lust, Caution on Sunday. Owls are awesome. My scanner doesn't work. I've watched the same episode of Jeeves and Wooster three times in the past couple of days.
Later: ( OMG TORCHWOOD. OMG JOHN HARPER. OMG. )
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