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I’ll Have Them Both, Thanks!
A few days ago Khana over at Khana’s web nominated me to receive the WordPress Family award. Then a couple of days later Nanuschka nominated me for both the WordPress Family award and the Sunshine Award!
I’m touched – I feel as if my WordPress buddies are part of my extended family and I’ve wanted this award for ages! I love reading about the experiences and views of people from far-flung places like the USA, South Africa and so on as well as posts from closer to home. I feel like I almost know some of you people.
The Sunshine Award – now, I’m not really a “Sunshine” kind of guy. Maybe my overwhelming pessimism doesn’t come out in my posts? But I’ll accept this one as well – maybe it will inspire me to positivity!
Here come the logos!
Here are the rules for the WordPress Family award:
1. Display the award logo on your blog. See above
2. Link back to the person who nominated you. Check and check
3. Nominate 10 others you see as having an impact on your WordPress experience and family. That’s 10 combined for both awards, right?
4. Let your 10 Family members know you have awarded them. Fine, I shall do this but it seems like a lot of hard work.
5. That is it. Just please pick 10 people who have taken you as a friend, and spread the love. Yay love!
The rules for the Sunshine Award are similar, but there are also some questions, which I shall attempt to answer below. I hope no-one minds, but I’ve added multiple instances of the letter “u” to the questions below because I’m a Brit.
- Favourite colour – blue, and most shades thereof, moving into purple (but not pink). Sorry, just one colour you say? Okay, blue.
- Favourite animal – cat, because they’re cute and fluffy and above all, independent. They’ll be there for you – on their terms.
- Favourite number – why would I have a favourite number? I hate numbers. They get all mixed around in my head. You need an answer? Okay, I’ll take a leaf out of “Bill and Ted‘s” book then – “Sixty-nine, dude!”
- Favourite non-alcoholic drink – “Tesco no added sugar cloudy lemonade.” I jut checked round the corner and I currently have 14 litres in the house, sitting next to my stockpile of Diet Coke cans (currently numbering 38).
Mmmm. Nearly no calories of tasty refreshment.
- Prefer FaceBook or Twitter – I really only use them to publicise my blog, though I read what my friends are up to via Facebook every few days, so Facebook I guess.
- My passion/s – I don’t really have any. I’d love to have some. Reading maybe.
- Prefer getting or giving presents – Giving.
- Favourite pattern – what does this mean, favourite pattern? Like, plaid or something? I’m not keen on patterns as such. I don’t like anything which regularly repeats itself.
- Favourite days of the week – Saturday. Yay for Saturday!
- Favourite flower – What? What? I can identify roses, daisies and dandelions. My favourite is none of them. See below for what my favourite flower might be.
Some of these might be my favourite flowers (taken at Bodnant Gardens, North Wales)
These flowers are shades of blue and purple, so that fits with “favourite colour”.
And so to the moment you’ve all been waiting for (or dreading) – the nominations! I know that some of these people either don’t really do awards or already have these awards. That’s cool. Feel free to take one or both of these awards if you like, but this list is really just to thank you for being a part of my little WordPress family and bringing a little sunshine into my life. I love to read what you’ve written, comment on your posts and read your replies.
So this is a list of just a few members of my treasured WordPress family (in no particular order), and I hope you’ll check out their blogs if you haven’t already!
Kate Stull
Knocked Over By A Feather
Morrighan’s Muse
The Rambling Diaries
Serendipity
Hope* The Happy Hugger
Rarasaur
Purnimodo
Fish of Gold
Gilraensblog
And finally, last time I showed you a view from inside the awards ceremony, so here’s me arriving for this ceremony, complete with imaginary girlfriend! Do you like my tux? Pretty sweet, huh? And the limo – fully stocked with Tesco No Added Sugar Cloudy Lemonade and cans of Diet Coke. Please be aware that this picture contains some flash photography.
“Red Carpet” by DraliDoodles (TM)
An Ever-Changing Blog
At the beginning of the week the lovely Khana over at Khana’s Web nominated me for the Versatile Blogger’s award!
First of all, I’d like to apologise to her for taking so long to write this post. In my defence, after sitting at a computer at work for 10 hours a day I find it quite hard to fire up the old laptop when I get home.
This particular award comes at quite an apt time, actually. I was already planning to write about how my blog has changed in nature from my original idea. But first…
Versatility is my middle name (not really)
When I first started this blog, it was going to be posts about things that happened in my life that made me think about things. Unfortunately, not a lot of things happen in my life and therefore I was running seriously short of things to write about.
So I added some poetry. Well, I say poetry. Most of it’s quite naive – I still haven’t quite gotten out of the schoolchild “it’s all got to rhyme” mentality. I’m not sure why I’m writing it at all – I hated poetry at school. Keats can take his “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness” and stick it where the sun don’t shine. It’s a perfectly good poem, but I have an aversion to anything I was forced to read and endlessly analyse at school. I enjoy a lot of the poetry I find on various blogs, but I choose to read that.
I actually hate nearly everything they forced me to read at school, the only exceptions being two of the books for my German literature exam – Die Physiker (Dürrenmatt) and Biedermann und die Brandstifter (Frisch). These are plays and therefore almost all dialogue. The third book was all flowery prose. I don’t want to read 300 pages of flowery prose in English. Why would I want to read it in German?
But I digress.
I began responding to some of the Daily Prompts – a great way to pick up ideas and see what other people make of them. I expanded my repertoire to fiction (I’d forgotten after all these years how much fun it is) and I’ve even added original “artwork” in the form of DraliDoodlesTM :-).
So I guess I have become”versatile”, and am happy to accept the award! Here are the rules:
- Post the above logo [done that]
- Accept the nomination and link back to the blog that nominated you [done that as well]
- Share seven things about yourself [coming up]
- Nominate blogs and inform them of the nomination [hmm]
So seven things all about me. This is, presumably, seven more things that I didn’t mention in my last award acceptance. That last award post pretty much used up everything interesting about me.
But wait – it doesn’t say seven interesting things, does it?
- I’m in my early forties (yoinks!)
- I’ve been at the same job for nearly 10 years – my longest-lasting job ever!
- I get up really early and go to bed quite early too
- In two days I’m embarking on my first holiday in five years. I’m going to Wales for three days. I’m anticipating high winds and heavy rain.
- I’m pessimistic by nature
- I enjoy books about sci-fi and vampires and magic and stuff
- I think it’s a really interesting fact about me that I can’t dredge up even seven interesting facts about me
I’m going to have to break with tradition here. I’m really no good at nominating people, so I’m going to follow the cop out various others have taken, and just say that if you feel your blog is sufficiently versatile, grab the award and follow the rules! Like I didn’t.
Here’s a picture of me receiving my award. Warning – this picture contains flash photography!
“I Accept” by DraliDoodles (TM)
Holo beam me up warptastic
Daily Prompt: The Next Big Thing – What will the next must-have technological innovation be? Jetpacks? Hoverboards? Wind-powered calculators?
An ant – or a mobile quantum computing device?
Photo – Fir0002/Flagstaffotos (see below for full details)
It’s going to be quite boring, is what it’s going to be. It’ll make a big difference to us, but we won’t care about the technology. I’m thinking quantum computing and storage or some such thing. We’ll have ultra fast computing with thousands of terabytes of storage in a computer the size of an ant, but we’ll just view it as “the next generation of computer – about time it arrived, what are those scientists thinking, taking so long?”. Hey, we could mount these new computers in an ant for computing on the move.
What about the examples in the Prompt? Jetpacks? Dated. Tried it, didn’t work, move on. Hoverboards? Very “Back to the Future”. Wind-powered calculators? Ooh, yes, I want one of those. Please? Pleeeease?
How about the “next big thing we really want” instead? Or to be more specific, what I really want.
Molecular transporters. There’s the thing. Beam me up! Forget hours standing in airports. We can spend hours queuing for an international beaming instead. London to New York in 3 seconds (please arrive 3 hours prior to departure, check-in closes 1 hour before). Marvellous!
Now we’ve got travel sorted out, how about entertainment? Some sort of “deck” using “holograms”. We’ll call it… a “Holodeck”! Yes, what an idea!
We’ll also be needing to explore the universe, find new planets to live on. We’ll be wanting to “boldly go where no man has gone before”. We’ll need something to “warp” space so that we can get to new planets quickly. Let’s call it “warp drive”! Yes! We’re really cooking now!
All that’s left now is something to defend ourselves with while we’re out exploring. Lasers are all very well, but we really need something which will allow us to “stun” our foes. After all, we can’t be known around the universe as a bunch of killers, can we? I’m thinking some sort of “phased” energy. We could call the device a, a, a “phaser”! Yes! We now have all the ingredients we need for a better tomorrow!
The technology might not be there yet, but it would make a damn fine TV show. Maybe I should propose it to a TV production company? There could be some money in this. I have created…
… hang on a minute. It’s Star Trek isn’t it? I’ve just reinvented Star Trek.
Arse.
“Holodeck” by DraliDoodles (TM). See below for apology.
Is this me on an alien planet? No, I’ve beamed onto a holodeck on a warp spaceship with my phaser!
An apology by the DraliDoodles (TM) team: DraliDoodles recently borrowed a drawing tablet from work in an attempt to make DraliDoodles (TM) appear more professional. It appears to have had the opposite effect. Apparently if you can’t draw to start with, a tablet only makes it worse. Sorry. [We’re going to go with the “it was drawn by a six-year-old” cover story, people.]
Photo – “Meat eater ant queen excavating hole”, from WikiMedia by “Fir0002/Flagstaffotos”, non-commercial distribution (CC BY-NC)
Raaaaaar!
Daily Prompt: The Interview – Interview your favorite fictional character.
draliman: And welcome to “dralichat in the afternoon” here on Radio Drali!
(“Tune on in to dralichat, dralichat, DRALICHAT!“)
draliman: And this afternoon we have a very special guest, Mr The Incredible Hulk! Welcome to the show Mr Hulk, or can I call you Incredible?
Mr Hulk: Raaaaaaaar!
draliman: So, Mr Hulk it is. So, Mr Hulk, what made you want to get into the rampaging business?
Mr Hulk: Raaaaaaaar!
draliman: Okaaay, could you describe your typical day?
Mr Hulk: Raaaaaaaar!
draliman: Riiiight, and what do you see in your future? Another remake of a remake?
Mr Hulk: Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar!
draliman: Uh, no, don’t eat the furniture. Ha ha, sorry about this listeners! Please Mr Hulk, put the chair down!
Mr Hulk: Raaaar (munch munch munch) raaaaaaar!
draliman: No, please, my arm, oh God he’s got my arm, please tell me they can sew it back on, hey come back with my arm, uh (passes out)
Producer: Cut to commercials, cut to commercials!
“Mayhem in the Studio” by DraliDoodles(TM).
Drali Two Point Oh
Daily Prompt: Clone Wars – If you could clone yourself, how would you split up your responsibilities?
Faster. Stronger. Better.
Day minus 1: The lab is prepared. The growth solutions are ready. My DNA has been extracted, sequenced and enhanced. Tomorrow we begin the cloning process. Our goal? To produce Draliman 2.0. Faster. Stronger. Better.
Day 1: My DNA has been added to the solution. The solution has been solutificated and the electrodes have been electroned. Let life be created. Ha ha, ha ha ha, ha HA HA HA!
Day 5: My creation is maturing nicely. Although still only partially formed, I look forward to the day when he emerges. He will have the intelligence to complete my daily workload and the stamina to see it through. His enhanced memory will replace my calendar and my sat-nav. He will have the confidence and self-assurance to go where no Draliman has gone before!
Day 9: My excitement grows. My clone has almost reached full maturity! I will soon be able to enjoy the better things in life, while Draliman 2.0 goes about the more mundane tasks.
Day 10: My clone is ready. May my new life begin! I release him from the solution and wrap him in a towel. Wait – he is about to speak! His first words…
“Wha… wha… what’s on the telly? X-Factor! Awesome!”
Disappointment fills my bones. Another failure. But I shall not be downhearted. I shall place him with the others and start again!
“Home of the failed clones” by DraliDoodles(TM)
(5 days pass)
Day minus 1: The lab is prepared. The growth solutions are ready…
Questions Answered
Wow. I’m so behind in my post reading. I just read Awardification written last week by one of my favourite bloggers, Goldfish. There was some talk of awards and whatnot but I saw my name in there somewhere and a list of questions to answer, posed by Goldfish herself.
There may be more award-related stuff to do but it’s all very confusing so I’m just going to answer the questions, and take the consequences! ‘Cos I’m a rebel.
Goldfish asks:
“The Foxglove Massive” by DraliDoodles(TM)
Do you remember what it was like to be short? I don’t mean adult short, but kid short, like 2 feet tall. (I don’t. That’s why I’m asking.)
I have one vivid memory of being little. We had foxgloves in our front garden and I remember that they towered above me. Years later, when I’d grown up, I saw more foxgloves and was surprised that they were shorter than I remembered. Very disappointing.
How tall are you?
I’m around 5 foot 8 inches tall. That’s right. Feet and inches. The UK is a confusing mixture of Imperial and metric measurements. Officially I’m 1.7 metres tall. We used to be all Imperial and then along came Europe with their directives and now we’re metric. Sort of. A pint of beer is still a pint. If asked my weight, I’d tell you 9 stone. Which is a massive lie, but I’d give it in stones and pounds rather than kilogrammes. Everything is officially metric apart from road-related stuff, which is miles and miles per hour, though all car speedometers also have km/hr on them in case we go driving in Europe. Damn you, Europe, and your modern ways.
What is your favorite genre of movies?
Tricky – that depends on my mood. Sci-fi, fantasy, action, comedy. Something like that.
Do you drive to work or take public transportation? How long does it take you?
I drive to work. It takes me around 8 minutes (5.4 miles). A little too far to walk. Cornwall is not great for public transport. Last time I checked, to get to work I would have to take a train into Truro and then find a bus. It would take around an hour to an hour and a half. And I’d either be really really early or slightly late.
What is your favorite moment of an average work day? For example, mine is getting home to see my dog.
I don’t play favourites. It starts. It ends. I guess maybe the end.
What was your favorite candy as a kid? Is it different now that you’re an adult?
Yorkie bars. Big chunky chocolate. I don’t eat those any more because I get addicted to chocolate and then I have to buy bigger trousers.
If you could pick one food item to eat as much as you want without any health consequences for the rest of your life, what would you pick?
Easy – pizza! Mmmmmm, Pizza.
“Talkin’ to Drali” by DraliDoodles(TM)
What actor or actress would play you in the story of your life?
I have absolutely no idea. Who could possibly be more qualified to play me than me? Okay, maybe Robert De Niro. He wouldn’t be right playing me, but he could keep saying “You talkin’ to me?” all the way through. That would be cool.
How far do you live from where you were born?
About 7 miles. I’ve lived and worked in Surrey (near London), Stuttgart (South Germany) and Cork (South coast of Ireland) but for various reasons I’ve returned to my roots!
I’m going to write a check to your favorite charity. To whom should I make it out?
Wow, that’s really generous of you, thanks! Please make your cheque payable to me and I’ll, um, make sure the money reaches its destination. No? Okay, Macmillan Cancer Support then.
Do you like your first name or do you wonder what the H your parents were thinking?
Hmm, “Alistair”. Tricky to spell is the problem here. Alistair, Alister, Alasdair, the list goes on. “Fred” would have been easier. However, “Ali” does lend itself to “Dr” on the front and “man” on the back – draliman! Yay, thanks parents!
Thanks for the the questions!
Letting it Happen
Today I shall attempt the impossible! Two prompts, one post! To quote BBC’s Red Dwarf (from the episode “Holoship”):
RIMMER: I shall undertake both tasks simultaneously if it’s all the same to you.
PLATINI: Mr. Rimmer, that is impossible.
RIMMER: Nevertheless, I shall attempt it.
Prompts for the Promptless by Rarasaur: “Wu wei, or non-doing, is a Taoist practice involving letting one’s action follow the simple and spontaneous course of nature rather than interfering with the harmonious working of universal law by imposing arbitrary and artificial forms. In other words, it is the action of non-action.”
Daily Prompt: Comfort Zone – “What are you more comfortable with — routine and planning, or laissez-faire spontaneity?”
A panda, whose name may or may not be Wu Wei. We’ll probably never know. (Picture JP Fischer, Wiki Creative Commons.)
So let’s just forget for a moment that “Wu Wei” is an excellent name for a panda. Let’s look at “spontaneity” first.
I’m about as spontaneous as a brick. Not one of those bricks which suddenly and without warning spontaneously decides to become part of a house. No, this brick just sits there letting life happen around it. It’s a Wu Wei brick, you might say.
Most of the time I’m a bit like the Wu Wei brick. I let things happen around me and just go with the flow. The world revolves around me and I sit happily in my little bubble.
Of course, I live in the real world. I work, I go shopping and so on. That part of my life is ruled by routine. Everything happens on a certain day at a certain time, even, to a certain extent, what I eat and when. That sounds really boring but it works for me. It keeps my anxiety level down. If I have to do something which breaks my routine, I try to forget about it until it’s time to actually do it. That way I don’t obsess about it.
“Safe in my Bubble”, part of the DraliDoodles(TM) collection
This sounds like I always have everything planned out. As far as my routine goes, that’s true. However, I never plan every detail of everything, because then it’s too easy for something to go wrong, and that would be “bad”. I’ve booked three days in North Wales in June, my first holiday for five years. I have a room booked and I have a route planned to get there, but once I’m there I’ll just let the mood take me. If I planned everything, I’d panic if something happened to change my plans.
So, to summarise I’m a semi-Wu Wei routine-driven partial-planner.
Wu Wei-hey!
For all you art fans out there, I’ve talked to the DraliDoodles team and they’ve given me some details! They tell me that “Safe in my Bubble” was rendered using a black ball-point ink-distribution unit on a canvas of dried compressed pulped wood. It was digitised using “a cheapo Canon scanner what we got off Amazon”.
So many inventions, so little time
Daily Prompt: Undo – If you could un-invent something, what would it be? Discuss why, potential repercussions, or a possible alternative.
First, big news. This post will feature the début of critically acclaimed* artwork created by me – DraliDoodles!
*Not necessarily true
So many inventions, so little time! Where to start?
“Battlelines” copyright draliman, one of the DraliDoodles collection.
Let’s start big. Let’s un-invent War. War is rubbish. We don’t need War. Without War we would all get along on our little planet in perfect harmony.
Wait a minute. No we wouldn’t. People would still kill people. Then more people would kill more people. It would all escalate. I bet if I un-invented War someone would reinvent it within about 3 seconds and call it something else.
Okay, so there’s no point un-inventing War. So let’s make War more of a slapping match. Let’s un-invent Guns. It’s decided then, Guns are going.
“Earth Gone”, another addition to the DraliDoodles collection
Hmmm, people will still find other ways to kill each other. Like hitting each other over the head with rocks. I can’t un-invent rocks. We need them to build houses and whatnot. And without any rocks we’d all be floating around in space wondering where the planet went.
Not Guns then. Just delaying the inevitable. I’m starting to see a pattern here. It’s Humans, isn’t it.
Let’s un-invent Humans! The world would return to an idyllic verdant green and blue paradise.
Whoa there a minute! I’m not un-inventing Humans. Not wishing to appear self-centred or anything, but I’m a Human! I just bought the Batman trilogy on Blu-ray and I haven’t watched it yet. Anyway, if a Human un-invents Humans, then Humans would never have existed, therefore I would never have existed to un-invent Humans. This would cause a temporal causality something-or-other which would likely result in an explosion so big it would make the Big Bang look like an “anal gas expulsion” someone ignited at a drunken party because it “seemed like a good idea at the time”.
I’m thinking too big. Gotta think smaller. Boy, this is a tough one.
Pop Tarts!
“Pop tarts or Cornflakes”, part of the DraliDoodle range
That’s the thing. Nasty little packages gumming up the toasters of the world with their leaking innards, sitting there deceptively on the plate with their slightly warm exteriors ready to sear our taste buds off with their 350 degree Centigrade fillings, making us wish we’d taken the time to sit down and have a nice
bowl of Cornflakes instead.
Pop Tarts. Final answer.
Or nuclear missiles.
Prints of all DraliDoodles are now available for purchase! These are limited edition as my printer is running out of ink, so order yours today!
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Woohoo!
I totally didn't win!
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