Idio(t)lect

Apr. 5th, 2008 01:16 am
marypcbuk: (Default)
1. A body of water, smaller than a river, contained within relatively narrow banks.

Sinuous rill

2. What the thing you push around the grocery store is called.

That which might be found in a river

3. A metal container to carry a meal in.

takeaway
4. The thing that you cook bacon and eggs in.

kitchen

5. The piece of furniture that seats three people.

the *big* chair

6. The device on the outside of the house that carries rain off the roof.

clepsydra
7. The covered area outside a house where people sit in the evening.

the pub

8. Carbonated, sweetened, non-alcoholic beverages.

sugar water

9. A flat, round breakfast food served with syrup.

pikelet

10. A long sandwich designed to be a whole meal in itself.

pan bagna

11. The piece of clothing worn by men at the beach?

raincoat

12. Shoes worn for sports.

Nike

13. Putting a room in order.

spring cleaning

14. A flying insect that glows in the dark.

solar firefly jar

15. The little insect that curls up into a ball.

earwig

16. The children's playground equipment where one kid sits on one side and goes up while the other sits on the other side and goes down.

the economy

17. How do you eat your pizza?

no white on the egg, please

18. What's it called when private citizens put up signs and sell their used stuff?

eBay

19. What's the evening meal?

served later than it should be

20. The thing under a house where the furnace and perhaps a rec room are?

horror movie

21. What do you call the thing that you can get water out of to drink in public places?
water bottle
marypcbuk: (Default)
Taking the latest YouGov survey I was asked how many times I had done any of the following in the last 12 months
Lied to a friend to get your own way
Cheated at a game
Stolen something from a shop or your place of work
Had a sexual fantasy about someone who is not your partner
Seriously exaggerated something on your CV
Failed to help someone properly when they have asked for your help
Acted ungenerously towards someone who considers you a friend
Shouted at somebody who didn’t deserve to be shouted at
Taken credit for the work someone else has done
Purposefully humiliated someone
Gone at least three consecutive days without taking a bath or shower

That's a interesting lack of distinction between action and intent, and in terms of the fantasy question, a major understanding on what fidelity and normal sexual thinking might be. Do they view a fantasy of Tasty Celebrity Of Your Choice as being equivalent to the other behaviours which are weasel-like and harmful? Many people have a wide sexual imagination and there's nothing wrong with that, and per researchers from Hite to Friday and beyond, it is in no way a gateway behaviour to adultery.

And past the 'good' behaviours and on into something that's midway between culture and self-gratification, would you expect this list to belong together? And if you did them one after another, what kind of a day would that be?
Gone to a football match
Signed a petition
Gone to see an opera
Spent more than £200 on clothes in a single shop
Gone jogging
Washed your car by hand
Baked a cake
Bought a hat
Gone to the doctor
Shampooed the carpet in your house
Dyed your hair

And who are they looking for with these questions?
I watch more than 2 hours of TV per day
I am a haemophiliac
I am one of triplets
I drive a left-hand drive car
I speak two or more languages fluently
I am colour-blind
I grow my own vegetables
I live in a hamlet
I have spent a holiday in Lesotho
I live on a houseboat
marypcbuk: (Default)
A few years ago I joined in the Small World six degrees of separation experiment, where you try to get in touch with other volunteers via the people who the people you know think might know the people they know. My attempts all failed at the third or fourth hop because busy people who haven’t volunteered for a social experiment don’t put a lot of time into finding the next likely candidate.

Scoble’s suggestion for getting attention by gaming the blog search system (and testing out blog search) with a nonsense word like Brrreeeport makes me think of what the researchers said about weak links (people you don’t know very well) providing good connections to people you don’t know at all. People who comment in your journal might be people you know well (more likely on LJ because of the community feel) but often they’ll be weak links. The Mexican wave of people shouting Brrreeeport will showcase lots of people who read Scoble and if the post they create is more than just referencing the word Brrreeeport it might get people to click through to them, or to pick the meme up from them. But blogging feels more like a meritocracy than an oligarchy to me; as long as people can find you, they’ll read you for what you say, not who you know.
marypcbuk: (Default)

marypcb --

[noun]:

A hermit living in the big city



'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com
marypcbuk: (Default)
from [livejournal.com profile] rowanf
Name 5 of life's simple pleasures that you like most. Try to be original and creative and not to use things that someone else has already used. Tag 5 people on your list.

Resisting the temptation to call my husband simple ;-)

1 a nice hot bath with a good book
2 ham sandwiches with really fresh bread
3 watching the sky and the clouds
4 olive oil
5 the scent of roses

If yo'ud like to do it, please do, but don't feel you have to! [livejournal.com profile] sbisson, [livejournal.com profile] drpete, [livejournal.com profile] elinor, [livejournal.com profile] elimloth, [livejournal.com profile] tamaranth
marypcbuk: (Default)
I've spotted at least one writer posting beginnings of unfinished work lately and I know that beginning has to grab when when I start writing. But how many of you look at the beginning when you decide to read a book? I look at the writer, the publisher (Avon Horror, just say noooooooooooooooooo!), the back blurb and a random page in the middle where I start reading to see if I like the style. But it never occurs to me to look at the beginning - possibly because then I'd have started reading the book and wouldn't be able to stop...
marypcbuk: (Default)
well, I'm not quite sure what the right word is. After [livejournal.com profile] fjm's discussion about LJ and search and pricvacy, I thought I'd use Google Images to search for my name. The results:
- the photo from www.sandm.co.uk/mary which is also www.marybranscombe.com
- Me as the Village People in the video at www.rantsandraves.co.uk
- a house in Richmond California photographed in 1923 by Mary Thompson for her school history project: the home of Mr Branscombe
- an illustrated invitation to a charity event chaired by a Mary Beth Branscombe
- an East Devon estate agent (Branscombe is a village)
- two photos of my engagement ring from an RSS feed of my LJ run by http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/;at the University of Bath: A centre of expertise in digital information management, providing advice and services to the library, information, education and cultural heritage communities.
- me braiding hair for charity at Eastercon 2003
- a picture that comes directly from my LJ but it's actually a PC and Pixel cartoon I blogged
- a box shot of Adobe Creative Suite Premium from the Graphics Unleashed site that copies reviews from Amazon; probably because I've reviewed graphics software for Amazon, though the site doesn't use my name anywhere.
- me looking sleepy on a panel at Helicon 2 because I'm so much shorter than Harry Turtledove that it looks like I've got my head on the desk
- the estate agent again
- the video cover for America's Natural Wonders - Yellowstone / Grand Canyon / Yosemite.

Not quite what I was expecting!

Y'all could pick this up as a meme if you like ;-)

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marypcbuk: (Default)
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