The Flexi Crevice Tool… November 24, 2009
Posted by Lauren Cooke in Life, Chatter & Politics, Wordy Business.Tags: amazon, dyson, funny stories, humor, humour
2 comments
Sometimes life is just plain odd… but this little oddity made me laugh.
Ben is a little terrified, as I am sure we all have been at some point, of the strange associations that the Amazon “other people who purchased this also bought…” tool recommends. Whereas we are all familiar with the strange things this tool throws up, such as people who buy books about fluffy bunnies also enjoy reading books about a boating in the south of France (I made that one up…), the suggestion today was a little odder.
As Ben happily browsed Amazon’s well-stocked shelves, he was informed that other people looking at the same item had also had a tendency towards buying the rather ominously named ”Flexi Crevice Tool”. Good god, he though, what could this terrifying item be? A strange and intimate sex toy? Perhaps a flexible tool for performing an enema? I must be honest, us dirty minded souls went through a whole host of possibilities.
Until, that is, we looked at the product. A useful little attachment for a Dyson. Now – who woulda thought?!
Dyson Flexi Crevice Tool (Ooh eh?!)
A Bad Week For Pets November 22, 2009
Posted by Lauren Cooke in Depression, Family, Life, Chatter & Politics.Tags: animals, death, pets, rats
4 comments
This week has been an incredibly bad one for pets. For those of you know don’t read this blog very often, or who perhaps are new, Ben and I own 4 rats, who we love very much. They are the brightest, most intelligent yet clumsy creatures ever known to man, and the are in no way stinky or scary. In fact, they have so many funny little mannerisms and such distinct personalities that how anyone could look at them and be scared rather than amused seems absurd!
Storm was the first of the four, a blue-grey princess with big ears on the side of her head and a lot of brains, She is the matriarch of the group, can kung-fu kick if cornered, and is the one everyone looks at and goes “wow”. She is gorgeous.
Buffy was the next introduction. A little rescue rat-kitten from down in Oxford, there is no pedigree here. instead, we have a loving girl who enjoys snuggling in blankets, isn’t bothered by food, and who is unfortunately allergic to those little mites that every animal (and human!) normally has but doesn’t notice. She itches all the time, poor thing.
Muffin was the third rat. Technically a pedigree ”Siamese rex”, this beauty has curly hair and whiskers, and really big hips. She loves to show her affection by licking you whenever she can (adorable, by the way!) and by curling up with you. She does, however, get very nervous if anyone touches her head, and runs away to hide.
The final and most recent intro to the group was Hermione. A little hermaphrodite, this gorgeous girl had finally stopped trying to rule the roost and taken instead to being absurdly inquisitive and rather adorable.
On Tuesday, we noticed two of our little ratties were ill. Storm, bless her, had developed a large tumour/growth about the size of her leg, and Hermione was looking terribly ill. Her head had swelled dramatically, and she wasn’t energetic enough to move. We rushed them to the vets, where Hermione was declared a little anaemic but fine, and we were told that it would cost from £60-£180 to find out what Storms lump was, and remove it.
Unfortunately, the next day Hermione died. We found her upside down in the corner of the cage, where the other rats had actually buried her. It was horrible. Storm is OK, still perky and energetic, but for now we can’t afford to have anything done. We are just desperately hoping nothing happens to her. On the same day, Ben’s cat from home had to be put down, which was incredibly sad on its own.
It hasn’t been a good week for pets. I feel so sorry for the other rats left without their friend. It is horrible.
Handmade, Vintage and Preloved: My problems with Etsy November 15, 2009
Posted by Lauren Cooke in Advice, Crafting, Inspiration, Life, Chatter & Politics, Rants, Vintage.Tags: Crafting, eBay, etsy, handmade, online shopping, Shopping, vintage fashion
19 comments
You have probably gathered just how much I love vintage fashion. The quirky, the wierd, the classic and the wonderful – I am happier in my preloved belongings than in brand new items. It would make sense, therefore, for me to love Etsy. After all, unlike eBay (my usual haunt), you don’t have to compete and bid against other buyers, and the prices are fixed and obvious. Along the same lines, vintage clothes tend to be cheaper on Etsy than they are on online stores, and even often cheaper than they are on eBay.
Etsy Logo
With all these advantages, however, come a number of disadvantages that mean I only buy on Etsy if it really is a case of needs must. These little things make the overall buying experience a bit of a disappointment, and really are simple little things. I simply fail to understand why such a big and successful website won’t put in the effort to make their site that bit more user-friendly.
So why do I have problems with Etsy?
Firstly, they will piss a lot of people off by not having multiple currencies. I don’t mind this too much (I can roughly translate dollars to pounds in my head), but for those who don’t have it programmed into their brains this can be a right hassle. People will find that heading to a site such as XE.com in order to find out the cost is often time-consuming, and can persuade people away from buying at all.
Etsy Local Search - No Keywords!
Next the search local tool. This is great if you don’t have something specific in mind. If you are just browsing, this tool allows you to enter a location, and see the first 100 shops that match those parameters. Of course, a brilliant shop may not have updated recently and will only come much further down the list than that initial 100, and there is no facility to extend the search and see the next bunch. Even worse, you can EITHER search by keyword, or by location, never by both. The closest you can get to this is to see who delivers to the UK, but if you are trying to keep postage costs down and only buy local this is quite a major pain in the ass.
Finally, I have an issue with the feedback method for Etsy. Like its more professional competitor, eBay, people are rated on selling accuracy – but unlike eBay, people don’t have to fill this in. That pressure to be a good and trustworthy seller isnt there, and whilst most people are good guys, there will always be scammers out there.
The thing is, there is still a recession on. We should be encouraging people to buy vintage, and experience the quality and brilliance of a real quality item. Similarly, people are becoming more and more creative, and for the first time in years a real handmade force is out there, crafting and sewing away. eBay doesn’t care about these creatives, concentrating more on the big corporate brands – and Etsy is fatally flawed. There are few outlets for such wonderful talent, and I just wish the website would get off its lazy bottom and sort it out!!
All that said, Etsy is home to the most wonderful and beautiful items. Definitely give it a visit, I am not trying to persuade you away from it! I just think that if they fixed these flaws, their website would be better than ever before, and so many more people would use it!
Do unto others… the debate of Organ Donation November 13, 2009
Posted by Lauren Cooke in Life, Chatter & Politics, Rants.Tags: healthcare, life saving, nhs, organ donation
2 comments
(I don’t know why Organ Donation deserves capitals in the title – sorry!)
Organ Donation Card
As people who follow my Twitter feed or know me on Facebook may have noticed, I have been thinking about organ donation this week. They are currently doing a mas push on it using television ads, and it triggered me to formally sign up in more of a way than just ticking the box for my cards and hoping someone notices. I also got Ben to sign up, and chatted to my family about the issue.
Organ donation is something I have always wanted to do. As long as there is something of me left to bury under a Horse Chestnut tree when I have died, I don’t mind where the other bits go. If they can help someone, all the better. For some unknown reason I have always had an issue with my eyes being used. Somehow, above anything else, that creeped me out. When signing up last night, however, I bit the bullet and hit the “take it all!!!” button – which, I would like to add, is not worded like that at all!
Whilst organ donation seems an automatic thing to me, other people never make an outright decision. For a majority of people, they never say yes, or no, to the prospect. So many feel don’t feel passionately about it either way, and as such they get missed, any opinions that they have may not expressed aren’t known if they do die, and plenty of organs go wasted based on the families wishes, and not the wishes of the actual person who really matters, the person whose body it is.
The ting is, I can understand people not wanting to donate organs. I don’t necessarily agree, but I know it is their right and someone messing with their body is an idea that disturbs some people. I am completely empathise with the squeamish side of it, and that as a reason for people choosing not to donate. And where this is the case, I feel people should be able to choose to opt out, whether for religion, or personal opinion, or whatever reason they may darn well choose.
That is where I stand on the argument - I believe everyone should automatically be put on the register, and if they care enough they can choose not be on it, with no problem at all. I simply don’t see why this isn’t the case?!
Can someone shed light on why we have to opt in rather than opt in? Do proactive organs work better?!
By the way, if you want to sign up for the UK register, simply go here.
Why do I love fashion? November 10, 2009
Posted by Lauren Cooke in Fashion, Life, Chatter & Politics.Tags: catwalk, Fashion, fashion industry
3 comments
This is a questions that I think people often wonder. Why do people find this sudden unquenchable interest in such a transient yet repetitive arena? Why do people find the clothes and the shoes and the art so utterly fascinating? For me particularly, I know people wonder how someone with absolutely no fashion sense, who hated shoe shopping, ends up writing on fashion blogs and gradually growing more and more involved with the industry?
(Image from here)
I thought I would put together a post on the subject. So, here are some of my reason. These are mine individually, and I am sure they differ from your reasons – which is what I find fascinating! Let me know why you are involved, I would be fascinated to find out!
- First, I love the passion it inspires in so many people. I love standing on the outside looking in at the effect fashion and catwalk have upon the, dare I say it, real world. The clothes people pick, the attitudes they assume, I adore watching it. I know that I come at fashion as an outsider, and I try to keep that attitude, being aware of the ridiculous and the horrible and the downright damaging sides of the fashion industry. This is the very reason I am so involved, as I can look in and observe the patterns – and as a psychology grad, what I see is amazing!
- Um… the shoes. I know, I know, there should be a more complex reason. But for me, shoe never fit as a child. My long gangly feet were huge in length but teeny width wise, and I used to trail around shoe shop after shoe shop searching for a pair that fit. I hated shoes. And then, when I was all grown up, they started fitting. Like some sort of overcompensation, I quickly became obsessed. After all, they are just so darn pretty!
- My third reason is, in my humble little opinion, an interesting one. I love watching an industry that believes so strongly in what it does. That belief, however, is surprisingly transient, a little bubble of belief that will have changed as “fashion” does. Outside that bubble, however, time passes, people change, and only some styles get adopted. Do people choose for practicality? Does one designer inspire the masses? What makes one dress and another similar one sell on such different levels?
- Finally, I take a guilty pleasure in being involved in fashion. In finding that accidently, even though I generally follow my own trends, I know what is happening on the catwalk. I know what you guys think, what you write on your blogs, what is “in” and “out”. That, my friends, is a nice feeling, and probably one I would have had whatever area I chose. I love to feel involved!
Interestingly, it isn’t all about the art that the fashion industry obsesses over. In fact, transient fashion doesn’t play much of a part in my life, only introducing pieces I love to a wardrobe I don’t believe gets outdated – not if I still like it at least!
The power of catnaps November 3, 2009
Posted by Lauren Cooke in Life, Chatter & Politics.Tags: biology, cats, napping, sleeping
6 comments
OK, it would seem that maybe I just got myself into a silly little mood earlier this week! People seem to want me to stay around, and I want me to stay around – so the time has perhaps come to stop being silly! After all, I can’t be doing that badly with freelance jobs on the side and guest blogging for pretty funky publications, can I??!!
Anyway, back to the wonderful world of blogging haphazardly about the little thoughts and wonderments that cross my mind!
The art of the catnap!!
(Image from here)
I was thinking, the other day, about how incredible the art of catnapping is. After all, we humans seem to be built with an innate ability to do it, all be it not quite such an impressive ability as cats may have, sleeping everywhere and only waking to eat! As babies, we catnap well, curling up and clenching our fists whilst recharging our batteries for the day ahead. This carries on into our early childhood, where nap-time is built into our day and relaxation is key. Well, relaxation and putting aside plenty of playtime.
Then, for me at least, the power of the catnap went away. I could only snooze in the day in my teens if I didn’t sleep for days on end. I would sleep in late, go to bed early – anything but take a short nap in the day. In fact, you could tell when I was ill, because I could just about be able to force my rebellious body to snooze, tetchy as it is!
It was therefor quite astounding for me to rediscover the art of the cat nap at uni. Something to do with the excessive alcohol, late nights, and unpredictable sleeping patterns of a few months at college somehow breeds even the most alert and awake of students into strange creatures with the ability to sleep wherever and whenever, and most likely in someone elses room. No longer was your bed the only one comfortable enough for you to sleep in – now any flat surface with a semblance of cushioning was ripe for the picking!
Now, with uni still fresh in my mind, I am an accomplished catnapper. I sometimes long for a hammock at work for those long afternoons, for an in-built cushion in the car where I sleep to stop myself being bored. I snooze on the sofa, if I choose, and I can even catch a couple of winks on the train.
Do you think there is something biological to this ability,some mental aging forcing me to recuperate for often?
To blog or not to blog? November 1, 2009
Posted by Lauren Cooke in Blogs, Depression, Life, Chatter & Politics.Tags: blogging, Depression, Life
14 comments
I am feeling a bit strange about blogging. I get plenty of hits, but they are just people looking for images that are on my blog, with searches for “Geisha” currently hitting up in the area of 700 hits a day! I feel I am just yet another limp and vacuous voice pumping out nonsense that no one cares or wants to read about into the blogosphere.
I spend my days reading witty blogs, intelligent blogs, a huge number of brilliant blogs, all the while knowing that mine is just… not. Mine is average, dull, unexciting. Why carry on writing, when all yours are so much more wonderful.
I am sure this is just a funny mood I am having, a moment of paranoia, of low self-esteem.
But does anyone actually care if I write or don’t write, if I choose to blog or not to blog? I think not.
Is it just meant to be? October 30, 2009
Posted by Lauren Cooke in Inspiration, Life, Chatter & Politics.Tags: dreams, fate, Life, speculation, wonderings
3 comments
I have been thinking about fate at the moment. I have been thinking of the way that throughout my life, things just “happen” to me. Life will be tough, and just as it gets too much the universe throws me a rope, something happy enough to distract me from my moodiness, to make everything seem OK. In the same vein, I can search for something for ages – but it never reveals itself until I really need it, at that point where I am about to turn away and give up the fight.
I don’t, however, believe in fate. I believe that decision, and consequence, and happenstance, all contribute inextricably to my life. Getting up in the morning and going about my day leads me to a predictable set of events, all be it with a little dose of chaos and unpredictability thrown in. Do I believe that all these things happen as part of some long winding yet pre-prepared road, set in stone for me and me alone? No. No I don’t.
However, in my head that butterfly effect theory, the idea that a butterfly beating its wings in japan could tripped and earthquake in America? That as a metaphor makes sense to me. After all, a major life lesson is that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, that every decision or step has a consequence, either for you, or your friends, or the world around you. Ambition, and free will, all contribute to our decisions and life choices, as does the way you are brought up, the food you eat, the things you see. It is useless to look at your life and see it as unchangeable – and it is equally useless to look at your life and ignore the connection it has to the environment around you.
That, you see, is the thing. Whether or not fate exists, we cannot exist with that in our mind. Fate would cause inaction, decisions would be unmakeable, if we believed in fate so strongly and religiously then it is quite feasible that that would stop us walking any path at all, let alone our “destined” one. Fate is the greatest and the oldest paradox! Assuming you have the power to mold and change your own life – now that is what inspires us to be bold, to be brave, to make changes and create a life that we can love and be proud of.
Just remember though – luck and coincidence and accidents – they are the things that make life so enjoyable, the things that make decisions so hard to make, the things that can bring us crashing down or build us up into the sky. No matter how much you believe you can control your life, no matter how much you can beat fate – sometimes it just won’t work, and in the end chaos and the universe always have the upper hand – and at least 5 Aces!
A dose of the Nastys November 18, 2009
Posted by Lauren Cooke in Blogs, Life, Chatter & Politics, Social Media.Tags: bitchiness, blog, comments, insults
9 comments
I have been quite lucky so far. The blogging and social networking world I have inhabited has been full of wonderful, inspiring people – old friends, new friends, and people I can’t help but read day after day. For some reason, however, I have had my first dose of nastiness in three (yes, three!!) nasty icky comments from three “different” people, all today! Thankfully everyone I know if so nice that it hasn’t got to me, and I thought I would share the absurd spelling, grammar and downright bitchiness with you all. So we can laugh at it, if you wish to!!
Oh – and it is worth noting how Gangsta speak is now the most popular for of insult. Isn’t that wonderful?! And Gangsta speak now encompasses archaic langauge, isn’t that odd?
Comment 1 waxed lyrical as such…
“I do not like your style… Do you ever feel embarrased looking back at your pictures? .. Because I would be .. REALLLY EMBARASSED YE DIG?”
Comment 2 was a little less subtle…
“You are not nice!”
It was good to have this pointed out, because for a while I had got it into my head that maybe (wait for it…) I kind of WAS nice. Gosh, I am please that was cleared up! Aren’t you? Imagine, reading along thinking I was all peachy, when beneath the surface lurked a not so nice hidden me?!
Finally, the trio was neatly topped off with…
“kAAAY LISTEN U LAYDIE YUR so wierd like what kindao fashion do you have im EFOSA, and like kaay like what are you doing.?\ yur so ugly and like the clothes yu wear thyre ugly too like kaaay leave me and my scocial buddies alone D:”
Aren’t they just nasty?!