Welcome to Meri's Worlds - Second & First Life

Oh now that was FUN!

2011-06-24T18:38:00.000+01:00

Playing Second Life's 8th birthday convinced me of one thing for sure... I have a great group of friends and want to thank you all :)

and this song kinda sums up the sunny summery feeling for me. Love you all xoxo

Sun of a Gun :)

Fear of Rotten Tomatoes

2011-06-23T21:11:00.001+01:00

I remember the time when I learned that New Order was borne of Joy Division. I was 16, talking to a guy I quite liked and I was waxing lyrical about my love of JD. He asked if I liked New Order and I said yes, but not quite as much, ‘cus they were quite different. He said he thought the same and that it’d all changed after Curtis died. I kinda shuffled off, relieved that I had not said anything to let him know I was so ignorant.

I’m telling you this, not just to point out to you all what a musical imbecile I am (I’m sure most of you already knew that anyway) but because I’m sure you’ve all been in similar situations. The realisation that everyone else seems to know something you really should have already known and you’ve just made yourself look a prat.

I find often with new DJs that they are nervous of going out and finding new music to play and I believe it’s this fear that is at the root of it.

The fear of looking an idiot in front of an audience.

The fear of rotten tomatoes.

Well I wanted to encourage you all, as I do the baby DJs. If nobody ever put themselves out there, we’d have missed out on some great stuff. I’ve learned a huge amount from Second Life DJs – a lot more than I ever learned in my first life from going to clubs or talking with friends.

I don’t exactly relish the rotten tomatoes (tomato relish?), but in a way, it reminds me why I’m alive and keep trying.

I’ve never liked these sl clubs where the conversation revolves solely around some obscure little spin off band from some even more obscure little band formed by the grand-nephew of Bob Dylan and Lennon’s Grandma. It’s up its own arse, not fun and let’s face it... all about the fragile egos of the people talking.

Long live variety, healthy discussion and no missed opportunities. If it sounds good to you, stand up and be proud and take the tomatoes – they’re good for the complexion anyway J

(I’ll be taking some tomatoes tomorrow at SL8B 4pm – 6pm UK time, DJ Stage Two. Stock up folks.)

FEMINISM - A FATTIST ISSUE?

2011-05-24T14:07:00.001+01:00

If I were to ask you which current British female celebrities were the skinniest, I wonder who you'd come up with?

Kiera Knightley? Victoria Beckham? Cheryl Cole?

I have no particular comment to make about the build of these ladies, I believe in personal choice, I'm not saying skinny is wrong or unnatural - some people are skinny just as some are fat, BUT!

This is wrong...

How anyone in their right mind can consider that either of these women are a good advert for losing 21 pounds of belly fat is beyond me.

These adverts are from Facebook and are simply placed to attack the already low self esteem of young women who think OMG, if Cheryl Cole had to lose 21 pounds of belly fat, god knows how much I need to lose.

I'm disgusted, truly.

Kiera will be next, I'm sure (I'll let you know if I see it).

I don't know what anyone else thinks, but I feel that Facebook along with other websites aiming themselves squarely at a young market have a moral obligation not to allow advertising that is potentially harmful to it's visitors. What next? Diet pills? Steriods? Fags? Easy earnings through Escorting?

I'm not a kid any more but it's not the first time Facebook advertising has left me with my mouth hanging open in shock and if they keep it up, I'll be voting with my feet.

I don't tend to go on about feminism per se. I'm not the kind of person who sees feminism as a way to bash men either (this has nothing to do with women's relationships with men in my mind) but it has a lot to do with healthy minds and healthy bodies. Young women are not encouraged to respect themselves, to love themselves and to love and support each other.

Skinny is king! Long live minimally clad tiny celebrities, small or non existent sense of self worth and slim pickings.

/rant off

MEN! They just steal your diving ball don't they?

2011-05-21T14:21:00.001+01:00

I sometimes wonder if men and women come from the same planet. Speaking as a woman with some empathy for the numerous and wholly ridiculous situations that men find themselves in, I find that I can wince sympathetically but still have no idea how they arrived at this point.

Yep, men find so many ways to put themselves in the dog house with us girls and yet... they still seem to have no idea what these invisible and unspoken 'rules' are.

Take last Tuesday for instance, when I arrived at the club, Josie was dancing with her friend and sometime dance partner Demos doing a rather raunchy kinda tango thing. I was delighted at first. Having sold my furniture, 3 babies and all my jewellery to buy the dance machine, I like to see it used.

Then, on her behalf, I began to feel idly pissy. He was obviously 'away from keyboard' and so I commented to Josie on it in chat, she said that she thought he'd gone to sleep. Let's pause for a moment and then revisit that thought... They were dancing a raunchy tango and he'd gone to sleep.

I said well, if he'd gone to sleep during dancing with me, I'd have gotten off the ball and let him do that mad flailing ridiculous dance that Thom avoids by ensuring he knows exactly when I'm going to get on and off a danceball (sensible boy).

Josie absorbed this and thought about it a little and then leapt off and did her own happy dance - all the girls cheered etc.

At the end of Claire's set (which was fab) we were saying our byes and stuff and somehow the idea that the guys might like a bit of a dance and cuddle with Demos came up.

*Grins*

Graz was first up, going for a sweet and romantic dance where they gazed into each other's eyes, Josie was strutting her funky stuff there in the background.

Thom leapt on next, chose a sexy crotch grinding dance and managed a few minutes before coming back to me and whispering 'He tried to touch me Meri'

Graz decided to have another go, but this time as 'Fat Graz' (See 'Fat Graz dances nearly naked and greased up on pole' photo in the AAi picture viewer for further reference)

And then Marlboro was encouraged to take his turn. We thought that not knowing Demos he might be feeling a bit shy so gave him plenty of encouragement.

Which he didn't seem to need...

And in fact we all left the club while they were still dancing together. Aww I do love a happy ending :D

So, the moral of that story to any sleepy dancers is... Nobody puts baby in a corner!

***

Next up I have more photo evidence of a way life is unfair to women, while giving men every chance.

This huge sandwichy type meal is the egg bacon and mushroom sandwiches being eaten by my Ex/Housemate/Pal for his breakfast. I should mention at this point that there is not a pick of fat on the man.

This was my breakfast... a single medium sized banana. So why, oh why is life so unfair? Why do my bits wobble and jiggle and flobble and his not? Someone needs to have a word with the God of calhorrific content and point out that if he doesn't care and I do, then I should be the skinny minnie.

***

Back to Josie dancing... this time with a very awake Cosmic, the pair of them steampunking it up with another sexy dance, this time at Graz's set at the Cavern Club.

***

Last night Thom went out drinking and gambling, 'cus that's just the sort of guy he is (choruses of 'Poor Meri' please) Seriously though, he'd gone round a friend's place for a cards night with a few cans.

I went onto SL alone and was determined not to get into any trouble of any kind at all. First off I wandered aimlessly and bought a new dress, as you do. Then I got bored and went and found a free photo studio and took a new picture of myself which I played with in photoshop for a bit before uploading it.

Then I started IMing with Sero who was also bored and then Graz who wanted to show me his stripey deckchairs which he'd put out at the Killing Moon for his set tonight after Mossy's at AAi. So we all congregated and sat on said chairs. Shauna arrived, followed by Ryann and I took a photograph (sadly before Clairey arrived).

We all spent the evening randomly dancing to random tunes played by Graz and falling over in a very organised way :D

I had fun, thanks you guys.

***

That's about it for me this week, hope you had a good one too :)))

Mucho luvo, Meri xox

It's life Jim, but not as we know it

2011-05-03T14:15:00.000+01:00

So I was on Facebook the other day, not something I do very often and I saw this advert in the right hand column...

What happens here, stays here! Really? That hasn't been my experience at all and I'm not sure that's a very honest premise to sell Second Life on. It's like saying, come into SL, cheat on your partner, nobody will ever know.

Make virtual memories that won't come back to haunt you! Oh, so SL is a place with no consequences, the people there have no feelings, I can act however I like and not have to worry about the aftermath.

To be honest, I was more than a little shocked and those of you that know me can attest (lol) to the fact I'm no Mary Whitehouse. It seemed immoral to sell Second Life in this way.

I think the correct advert should have looked something like this...

****

Last month Thom and I celebrated 3 years in world and together. It's been quite a ride :) Thank you to all of you who came along to our party and made it special for us, we appreciate your friendship every day.

Mossy did us proud, playing all of 'our' songs and some that he'd chosen himself. It was a lovely evening and we loved every minute of it. Thank you.

***

AAi is proud to open it's airspace to brand new satellite venue, The Cavern.

AAi Manager Graz Firecaster got the building bug and decided, together with Claire Elgund to build a tribute to the original Liverpool Cavern in Second Life.

At the end of April, Graz and Claire hosted a Merseybeat night at the newly built Cavern as a launch evening and it went with a swing!

We all boogied for 3 hours to the great tunes played by Graz and Claire and I hoped there would be many more evenings this good in the new place.

I think they did a fabulous job - it's not a completely faithful reproduction, but it has all the main points of the original build and is an artistic tribute more than an attempt at accuracy. It's a lovely place and you should go have a looksee :) http://slurl.com/secondlife/Clockwork/199/42/1999

It's quite exciting to have a new venue under the AAi header and you can be sure that some of the regular sets will take place here. Anyone interested in doing an appropriately themed set should contact the Grazcaster to discuss please.

***

Finally... thought for the day "Those who can laugh without cause have either found the true meaning of happiness or have gone stark raving mad".

Norm Papernic

Wowowowwow!

2011-03-13T15:28:00.003Z

Yesterday was Guilty Pleasures - A festival of bad taste at AAi. It was an idea that Cisa Batista and I had talked about a while ago, perhaps even six months but time went past so quickly. I started talking about it again recently with Claire Elgund and she too seemed to think it would be a good idea to have a go.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to just do it (tm Nike) and sent out a plea for DJs to play an hour long set of the songs they secretly enjoyed but would never usually play in SL.

9 brave souls in the end decided to play...

I got Graz to do a flyer for it and slotted everyone with minimum mumbles into time slots, it really was a total pleasure. No in-fighting or competing over slots, no awkwardness - just everyone making themselves as available as they possibly could and fitting in.

So yesterday just before the first slot at 5pm GMT (9am SLT) I met Pixie at the club for her set. I was a bit nervous but she wasn't having a bit of that and was totally enthused about showing herself up in the name of fun and frolics.

I wouldn't go so far as to say I was surprised that people began to arrive even before the music started, but it was a very happy feeling.

All 9 DJs managed to play and the club never stopped swinging for the whole 9 hours. Almost no issues arose, despite Graz Firecaster having awful computer problems and managing to make a new one out of the spare parts of two dead ones. (Major thanks to Cosmic Beres at this point for offering to step into Graz's slot when it looked like he wouldn't be able to return).

I didn't take anywhere near as many photos as Claire, but I put a few here that I took just to show the efforts people had gone to and the kinda fun we had.

Aramos took us along the highway to the danger zone with his mostly 80s themed guilty pleasures set with more than a hint of Top Gun about both him and the music. CutoutKylie looked on in awe.

Thom, Cos, Becky, Josie and Lady MeriGaga boogying for ABBA's approval during Thom's set.

Agnes nearest the camera spent a good long time at the club, staying til the wee hours to support us, also pictured my ass :)

The lovely Claire with blue hair and Graz in his Elvis and fro garb :)

We made some new friends... Boo (in addition to our other Boo), Atanau, Gray and many others who I think we'll be seeing again.

DJs not pictured but still massively valued - Pixie Arcana, Cisa Batista, Iggy Soup, Talisin Llanfair (Tal) - you were all beyond wonderful and I loved every set.

I'd like to thank everyone for putting themselves forward and out and going over and above the call of duty in the name of fun, friendship and naff tuneage. You're all beyond awesome and I love yous.

M xoxox

SCREAMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2011-03-08T15:42:00.001Z

My dearest Second Life Friends

In case you were not aware of it, please never ever uninstal any version of the Second Life Viewer you have on your computer.

I am currently using Phoenix, I have Firestorm pre Alpha downloaded - Imprudence as a backup and V2 somewhere (I can't find it at the moment but anyway...). I decided therefore that my needs were well and truly catered for and uninstalled the Second Life browsers I had hanging around - a beta, a release candidate etc - all old browsers.

Guess what it did? (Are you ahead of me here?)

It uninstalled all of my IM and Chat logs :(

I raged, I checked my recycle bin, I stormed, I restored my computer to yesterday, I cried, I checked the Second Life Jira to find that Second Life is the only piece of shitty software in the WORLD that uninstals your user data without even asking you.

If you uninstal MSN, it doesn't delete your conversation logs - no program does. It's a travesty. It's a liberty. It's a massive oversight.

We embrace Second Life as our actual Second Life. The conversations I have with my friends are precious to me and if I could turn on conversation logging in my First Life I would surely do so. The ability to go back and re-read conversations I've had makes me happy, I can relive memories moment by moment instead of relying on my sometimes dicky memory.

Yeah I'm sure that makes me sound a sad sap but, it's the truth.

Now they're gone... I'm running some free file recovery software but I don't know if it will help at all. If you are a friend of mine and you feel the same about IM logs, maybe you'd like to a) back yours up for yourself and b) take your IM log with me and make a copy and email it to me? (see comment below)

That'd be really kind. Thank you for reading my rant. Bring back the sunshine! xox

SOME DAYS...

2011-03-05T16:32:00.003Z

What you need is to just chill out with someone who loves you and listen to great tunes.

I totally recommend getting virtually prune like to the likes of Frou Frou and Mazzy :)

That is all xox

2011-03-03T17:29:00.002Z

I start my blog this week with a tribute to St David's Day. Aramos Darkfury (makes him sound kinda aggressive and wild doesn't it? He's not) was doing his first 'formal' set at AAi and played all Welsh bands and singers. It was mostly really extremely good and partially slightly cringe-worthy, which is the combination we shall know as the 'Magic of Moss'

It was heartening to see the outfits purchased for St Davids, with both Seren and Mossy looking like representatives of Team Wales Motor Racing Team :) Bringing Welsh sexy back, isn't it?

Of all the pictures I attempted to take of Josie and Colin, the only one that bore reproducing is her sitting on him here, I think we have a love match finally for Colin, after so much trauma (Graz).

I showed my support for St David's day by bringing along my pet shoop Dolly and attaching her to my belt buckle for safe keeping. Why? What did you think was happening? How rude!

***

The very next day (Wednesday) and it was time for Pixie's set at AAi. She has the dubious honour of playing from 8.00pm - 9.30pm uk time/12pm - 1.30pm slt, just before Graz Firecaster.

Pix thrills weekly with her excellent taste in tunes and her cries of 'Squirrel!' - you should come check it out.

Anyway, to cut a long story a bit shorter so that you don't start rocking in your chairs... Claire told me that we had all missed Graz's Rezz Day. He was 2. It had been last week.

I converged on the club simultaneously throwing decorations up and beating Graz about the head (I show my affection through aggression and tinsel, it's just the way I am).

As a special treat, Jells was allowed not to stay up after her bedtime, but instead to bring her bed into the club and get her head down. I heard this about the offspring of people who own bars, they live in a strange twilight world filled with drunks and people with questionable morals. (AAi (TM))

Pretty soon there were a few decorations, balloons, flowers and dancing... thanks to everyone who contributed to make it a nice impromptu party - esp Graz himself for the fabulous tunes.

And here finally is Grazzle himself, watching his feet as he dances so that he doesn't get confused and fall over. Awww.

***

In my first life things have progressed some...

I am now formally no longer a dole rat of any kind :)

I am a self employed person bringing joy to the world through my use of words (I promise that when I am getting paid I make sure it's better than this drivel). I'm doing freelance journalism on a local basis for a national company and copy-writing for the web to bring search engine optimisation to the masses.

I'm currently earning a few beans, which I will plant outside my window and hope they grow into a massive beanstalk. I can then climb up and find something at the top :)

I'm a bit skint at the moment if truth be told but I had to spend some quids on a nice ring binder, matching notebook and a things to do pad. They have a lovely design on them and I have also polished my computer desk and cleaned my screens. I sharpened my pencils and put them in a pot that co-ordinates with my folder etc.

I'm a bit excited, yep, fo sho mo fo's.

***

So, that's about it for this week. I'm trying to be current and up to date and hopefully that might involve posting more often.

Massive hugs to you all xoxox M

A Letter to my 17 year old Self

2011-02-17T18:11:00.000Z

Hiya Little Me

In 20 years time you’re going to be Me and through this tiny glitch in time I thought it would be cool to write to you and give the benefit of my wisdom (pff).

First things first Petal... DO NOT GO BLONDE. Oh! You just did? Damn it. The Upkeep of that much bleaching really dries out your hair and to be honest, it just wipes you out and not in an interesting vampy way either. You’ll go grey somewhat prematurely, so make the best of your natural colour now. It’s far sexier to be natural anyway.

Bleached

You’re more suited to being dark haired as you find out in your 20s when you accidentally dye your hair blue and then have to dye it black to cover it over.

Natural

It really doesn’t matter that HE said when he first saw you he thought you looked like Patsy Kensit ‘cus he knows nothing (no really, absolutely nothing).

Oh, and on that score... I know you won’t believe this right now but he’s not ‘the one’. I’m really sorry, I know you’ll be incredibly hurt by this but he’s going to dump you just before you turn 18. I promise you that you will get over it. Hey! As I’ve tipped you the nod, how about you get in first?

You’ll briefly revisit things 10 years later but honestly... I wouldn’t bother. I know I did bother, but it wasn’t much cop second time around (like Rice Krispies when you leave the milk in for too long - all the snap, crackle and pop had evaporated) so you might just as well avoid it.

You’re also, if memory serves, currently being made to feel guilty for being a bit of a ‘wild child’ – too much in the way of partying, staying out late, falling over and snogging men. Please don’t feel guilty about this at all. Dance like nobody is watching :)

You’re wasted working in a factory making Cyril Smith’s underpants, but you know that already don’t you? Just part of the general rebellion isn’t it? Do what your Mum says and go to College now, the sooner you sort your life out, the sooner you’ll start to make some decent dosh and you’ll like that.

Don’t doubt or regret your career choices after that. They will mostly be fine, you have a good instinct for business and you have great communication skills. Only one rule should be followed within reason – don’t leave a job until you have another of equal pay somewhere else. This rule does not apply until you reach 20 J (No more spoilers – oh okay, maybe one or two).

About men... I honestly don’t know what I could say to you that would make your love life any plainer sailing. Don’t confuse your proclivity to be drawn towards ‘Bad Boys’ with taking up with ‘Really Bad Men’. The first have a sense of humour and fun and like to have adventures with you, the second are no fun at all.

Equally don't feel pressured to shack up with the first guy with a decent pension plan that comes along (not that you ever would) I would suggest you look for chemistry, personality, intelligence, good moral fibre and a nice ass - not necessarily in that order. Your inclination to veer wildly between extremes needs to be tamed a little. Try getting to know yourself between boyfriends.

Never be afraid to be alone, you’ll always have company. You’ll have many different friends and you’ll have a few very close friends all your life.

Don’t break the law – ever. You always got caught talking in class, you're just one of those people who gets caught. Anyway, rule breaking of that magnitude would bother you immensely.

You’re allergic to Quaternium and Polyquaternium – start checking ingredients labels in beauty products, especially conditioners. If you don't, you have an unfortunate incident with a facial scrub and some Estee Lauder moisturiser in your early 30s and your face will fall off - almost literally.

You’re hyper sensitive to mushy peas and although you love them, you should consider losing your appetite for them. Nobody loves a farty bum.

Trust your Mum, it’s not that she’s never wrong, it’s that she always wants the best for you and will be the best friend you could ever want.

It’s okay to love your Dad even though he’s not perfect. He loves you as much as he knows how.

Stop smoking immediately – I can’t emphasize that enough. Also, you’ll never be slimmer than you are now, if that depresses you, I’m very sorry. You think you’re fat but you’re far from it. Your boobs get bigger, but you don’t get any taller (thank God eh, we're already 5'10"). If you start going to the gym now, I’ll keep it up – how’s that for an offer?

Umm.... try to save some money, floss, get a better driving instructor and OMG (Oh My God) latex! You’re allergic to latex, so get some non latex thingamabobs (condoms) and take responsibility for that side of things in the future. That bit of info should save you a sore foo (umm... Foo, come on girl, use your imagination).

Ultimately, I suppose I am saying that I would advise you to take almost every opportunity life throws at you, don’t feel so guilty about everything. You are a nice person and you should believe in yourself more.

I suppose you'd like to know what you look like now? Well, your face has done pretty well actually, you now dye your hair out of necessity and vanity (due to the grey), it's all gone a bit squishy elsewhere, I'm sorry to say :( Well... you did ask! Great rack tho :D

Oh and a little bonus cheat – in 1995, scrape together every pound you have and put it on a horse called Royal Athlete in the Grand National – it romps home at 40/1.

Big hugs

Meri xox

P.S. You have a great imagination, never be ashamed of expressing it J wink nudge wink

WHOA! Where did December go?

2011-01-13T19:47:00.001Z

Hello ma liddle Pickles!

Yeah I know, I'm crap, real bad, so lazy, totally dreadful at actually blogging at regular intervals.

There is an up side to that however. This post should have some actual meat in the sandwich (OI!)

So yeah first off I have to deal with the unpleasant topic of Sexual Harassment in the virtual workplace... Our Assistant Manager Jellie Arrowmint passed me this image after filling out the official complaint form. One of our DJs who shall remain nameless (except in the image above) was patently making advances.

Admittedly, Jellie said it wasn't totally unwelcome, but I mean, it's hardly the point is it? Needless to say, the DJ in question is on the Arf punishment list now and will remain there for some time.

***

Christmas arrived, as it does, with Thom and I attempting to come up with a suitably festive greeting card to send to our friends. We decided on a traditional, if slightly camel-based, nativity theme for 2010, complete with Baby Jebus, the Virgin Meri and Thomseph the slightly squiffy carpenter. All suggestions for next year gratefully received :)

***

Some of you who were at one of my pre-Christmas sets at the wonderful Pig and Whistle Pub might have been privvy to this conversation already, but it was so funny I had to reproduce it here.

Incoming message from (hh*l*6* Patrucci)
hh*l*6* Patrucci: my God ....... You are so beautiful ...... I hope to God ... To protect you forever ...... You in an image file .... Masterpiece ..... You are very beautiful ..... You deserve all the best .... You all the respect and appreciation from the bottom of my heart
Mericat Ireland: umm thanks hhali
hh*l*6* Patrucci: My tongue is unable to express ...... You are truly the most beautiful gift of God .....

It did go on a little after that, with him wishing me all the love in the world and nectar etc, which was extremely sweet of him, but the moral of this story girls is... It's ALWAYS worth brushing your hair and banging on a bit of lipgloss 'cus you never know when a reaction like this is around the corner ;)

Also... you can see there that my response is kind of muted and respectful. I'd rather do that than say what I am really thinking which was 'Are you taking the piss?'

***

I had to put this funny little exchange into my blog, mainly for Aramos's pun which I thought was masterful and sooo quick. Shane came in dressed as the Grim Reaper, his explanation follows...

[14:03:20] Shane Wildmist: i came to scare meri
[14:03:21] Shane Wildmist: :P
[14:03:27] Shane Wildmist: hows everyone??
[14:03:28] Mericat Ireland screams!
[14:03:36] Mericat Ireland: Eeeeeeeeek!!!!!!!
[14:03:44] Aramos Darkfury: uh oh, its the Prim Reaper
[14:03:48] Cosmic Beres: with a large sickle

***

"Snork!"

I was over at Alt7 with Thom around Christmas and we had our AAi tags on. Many of you will have seen them. Thom's is Bankrolla cus he pays the bills and mine is Tits n Ass, cus a friend once commented that Tits n Ass is what I brought to the club table. It's slightly sarcastic, self deprecating and intended to be more of a laugh than having boss or owner over our heads.

Anyway, Markusje (who you all must know) made a remark in chat about his personal habits... the convo follows from that point...

Mericat Ireland: thanks for sharing markus

Bzungu Franizzi: gee, thanks for sharing Markus

Mericat Ireland: haha

Bzungu Franizzi: haha

Bzungu Franizzi: we think alike

Mericat Ireland: we do bzungu

Bzungu Franizzi: excepting your title...

Mericat Ireland: ah, that has a story to it

Mericat Ireland: one i'm not telling this evening too

Space Grelling: We love titles

Bzungu Franizzi: that's why I never wear one

Space Grelling: What else would we read while listening to the music

Bzungu Franizzi: gives away too much

Mericat Ireland: Well I'm not here to hide anything

Mericat Ireland: So I don't have to worry about that

Space Grelling: What is there to hide?

Mericat Ireland: lot of people use SL as a chance to be someone else I suppose

Mericat Ireland: I've nothing against that, but I don't

Phoebe Pappentas: either way, is "tits n ass" really the self we want to be?

Mericat Ireland: I dunno Phoebe

Phoebe Pappentas: existenially speaking

Mericat Ireland: it's my owner tag for my club

Mericat Ireland: Thom's is Bankrolla

Bzungu Franizzi: oh, well that's different (snork)

Mericat Ireland: they're slightly tongue in cheek

Markusje Owatatsumi: i always giggle about how humans seem to belive they are so much more civilized than

"tits and ass".....i think that Mericat is close to the core truth of human nature

I prefer to discuss existentialism with people who can actually spell it. For those of you haven't swallowed a dictionary today, a definition is 'A philosophy that emphasizes the uniqueness and isolation of the individual experience in a hostile or indifferent universe, regards human existence as unexplainable, and stresses freedom of choice and responsibility for the consequences of one's acts.'

So Phoebs, existentially speaking, balls to you :)

A tag over the head of my avatar does not define me, neither does my avatar. Neither does the opinion of someone who gets their ideas on feminism from reading Cosmopolitan and then turning the page to read an article on 99 ways to keep your man happy

If you Google your avatar name and find this blog, then please feel free to email me to discuss it further. I do love intelligent debate - mericat.ireland@googlemail.com.

Rant over people... (nobody puts baby in a corner)

***

Christmas at AAi was really nice :) Quite a few people were on Christmas Eve, despite it being such a busy time for everyone and I played a set of miscellaneous stuff to keep them happy. People really entered into the spirit of things and everyone (barring Thom in his sparkly santa male stripper outfit) looked really sweet.

Oh sorry, did I say everyone?

Hmm

For those of you who don't know - Graz Firecaster, Manager of AAi, writer for Moonletters and all round mocker.

Other festive highlights included...

Kostas Kesslinger peeing behind the bar

and Thom sitting very still while getting over an enormous 3 day hangover

***

Last Monday at the Pig, Thom and I had kind of dared each other to 'flash'. My prediction was that nobody would notice during chat and all that... I was wrong

In preparation for this event, Thom wanted to know if it was possible to tell he'd left his prim pubes on if he had his jeans on (he was thinking this would save time when getting naked) I said yes they were, he said no they were fine, so.... yeah they're fine hun ;)

One day a week or so ago (can't remember when because I am a goldfish) I went over to Graz's and sat with him, Claire, Shauna (pictured) and then after a while Seren and Cosmic came over too. Was so nice, really chilled and Shauna told me the other day that she is going to start a Discussion Group with hosts to debate and talk over interesting subjects at Moonletters HQ. Sounds ruddy brilliant to me. Really looking forward to going over there.

And finally, I want to leave you with the image that I see as I leave SL most days. Me and Thom relaxing on our deck, having put the world to rights.

We always come back to the same conclusion, SL is a good thing for us, our friends are pretty fabulous and AAi is a great place to be. We wouldn't want it any other way.

Snow Joke!

2010-11-30T16:43:00.002Z

Hiya Friends, Compadres and Lurkers...

Sorry it's been so long since I updated my blog, I've been kind of busy and also kind of UGH and a bit WAH.

Basically I get stonking migraines sometimes, often when the weather changes. I am something of a human barometer and if you tap me smartly on the forehead you will see my arrow swing around. (Does anyone still have barometers any more?)

I was going out with a lad once, he was actually my first 'proper' boyfriend (proper indicating post puberty and kissing with tongues). We were both 13 and I won't put his name here in case he Googles himself, as you do, and finds this *blushes*. Aaaanyway, I wanted to set his friend up with my friend and so I told this lad that her eyes changed colour when the weather did. They hated each other sadly but it did mean two dates just so that he could check if I was right.

I digress, as usual. So, back to the present day where I am recovering from a spate of migraines and other RL bothers and coming back to blog you, blog you hard, blog you until you beg I blog you no more.

I was at home one day, on Skype voice with Thom, when there was a big knock at the front door. I said 'Oh crap, someone's at the door' Thom asked if I was going to answer it, but I thought I shouldn't because I was in my dressing gown and nothing else and my hair looked like Russell Brand. So I whispered that back at him and said I was going to keep very quiet.

The knock came again, louder and I heard the little almost silent squeak of a spring that meant the intruder was pressing the doorbell that doesn't work too. I sat tight and still on my sofa, partially hidden in the corner, by my back window.

I have to explain how things are laid out now... My house is a semi, with a path and gate at the side leading to the back garden. When you get inside there is a patio, the conservatory door and some lawn beyond that. If you follow the lawn round, all the way around the conservatory, you find the other side of the house and my living room window - but nobody does that, cus that would be crazy.

So yeah, I sit beside that window.

I heard the front door person shuffle, walk around the side of the house to the gate and whispered to Thom 'Oh, think it's okay, he's going to leave it by the back door' (conservatory door) and we were giggling and whispering when I was suddenly hit by a flying parcel.

Yeah... not great. The man had walked all the way around the house, seen me through the open window whispering, pretending to be out and looking MINGING and simply hurled it through the aperture onto my lap.

A normal person might have yelled 'thanks' or 'you git' or something, but I simply froze and hoped it would go away. I had Thom (who had heard the sound of it landing and me squeaking and then silence) saying 'What's happened? Tell me what's happened?' and I couldn't speak for horror.

For SHAME... I have tried not leaving the house or seeing other people voluntarily but they seek me out to make me look stupid now.

Gah.

***

Me and Thom went away this weekend to a really great cottage somewhere in the Midlands. I realise I'm being vague geographically but if you look at it from my point of view, you will understand.

It's a really great place, totally awesome and not a bad price and this happened to me once with a hairdresser... I told everyone how great she was when she was a junior stylist, soon she had all my friends and colleagues going to her and she simply FLEW up the hairstyling career ladder until I could no longer get an appointment or afford her when I could get to see her.

So the cottage is staying at the bottom of Division Three of cottages where it should not be but where it is more accessible to the likes of us.

And to be honest, I don't like to think of all you lot having it off in 'our' bed. :)

We'd been before - in December 2009 - and we will go again, it's our little haven of peace.

This time it was snowing and so I was glad Thom was driving his four wheel drive instead of pushing my Fiat.

I was more glad for him to be honest. It can't be easy being a soft southerner who bought a huge, four wheel drive, off road vehicle in order to do a 20 minute dual carriageway journey to work and back. My poor hunny must get the piss taken out of him all the time by his more ecologically aware colleagues. At least now he can tell them that it has real farm mud on it. The engine roared and everything.

I gotta show you photos now... partly cus they're gooooood and partly cus I love torturing people with photos only Thom and I could possibly be interested in :)

Uphill on the way there, through the snow. Thom was understandably a little nervous. I was extremely excited and humming the theme from the Dambusters for some reason.

The Cottage entrance that night when I popped out for a cigarette

Last time we went the fire proved to be more of a challenge than Thom thought
(he had been confident of a roaring fire in minutes).
This time he simply rubbed his stick vigorously with his woggle and BAM glorious flames :)

The driveway the next morning, well, about half of it anyway

View from the cottage over the beginning of the Pennine Hills

Little Gate, awww

Yep that's it, the whole thing. Hard to believe it contains 2 lovely bedrooms,
2 bathrooms and a lovely kitchen living room

Yeah even I'm getting a little bored looking at photos of the cottage now, and I'm emotionally involved.
Hmm, you have my permission to comfort eat while continuing.

One... last... wafer... thin...mint

And relax

While we were there, Thom made the most wonderful Sunday roast for us (lamb, the best roast potatoes in the world, cabbage, brussels sprouts, green beans, peas, yorkshire puddings, gravy and mint sauce) and we basically chilled right out. Like horizontal man!

Erm and No! I'm not going to talk about the horizontal on my blog! It's a blog, I mean... would you?

***

On the SL front, I'd like to formally welcome some new DJs and faces to AAi...

Nomad Rovio - sterling chap, knows a lot of shiz and has great taste in music
Blare Auster - a great DJ and all round cutiepie
Claire Elgund - An early Christmas present for AAi from the mod Santa, fab lass too!
Eyktan Tsun - not a new face to most of us, but new to DJing at AAi, massive halloooos :)
Aramos Darkfury - not a DJ, but a new and welcome regular who was trapped at an early age

Oh by the way, please check out Aramos's's's's (well where are they supposed to stop?) awesome blog http://aramos-darkfury.blogspot.com/

Big loves to all of you and congrats on joining the most mental family on all of SL.

AAi does not want to be the biggest club on SL, or the most popular, it wants quality and by golly, we're lucky to be getting it so far, thanks to one and all.

I wanna kill tonight

2010-10-02T12:56:00.014+01:00

It's been quite a week, this is going to be quite a picture intensive bloglet :)

First off, Thom and I went exploring in SL. I found a place called Retropolis and wandered over not expecting much except a ship (I love pirate ships).

*To view photos full size click on them, and then back to return to the blog)

I wasn't disapponted, here is us on a pirate ship, in a turbulent sea being attacked by a sea monster. Spray flew over the decks as it rocked, the parrot shouting out nonesense.

We wandered around exploring on deck and below and found a handy table on which to have an arm wrestle in true pirate style. I won of course (tis SL after all) and as you can see, I was gracious in victory as I would have been in defeat :D

We found a genie and he gave us a free pass to get to another part of the sim, we went to a cavern where there was a friendly troll. Well... not that friendly to be honest.

Mericat Ireland: that troll has been giving you the evils
Mericat Ireland: i saw him
Thomas Thaler: you wanna piece of me !!!!
Mericat Ireland: yeahhhh you face him off
Mericat Ireland: bloody troll
Thomas Thaler: yeah that shut him up

Fearless Thom bravely tried to show the Troll who was boss with unfortunate results...

Mericat Ireland: i'm trapped
Thomas Thaler: i'm offering myself up babboon style
Mericat Ireland: yeah i snapped it
Mericat Ireland: you look so purty

Mericat Ireland: you lookin up my skirt?
Thomas Thaler: might be
Mericat Ireland: looks like we're going to die a horrible death, feel free
Thomas Thaler: ahh knickers
Mericat Ireland: :D
Thomas Thaler: tsk

Yep, Thom on the verge of dying was sad only that I was wearing big knickers. Such is life.

We finally escaped when Thom agreed to put out to the Troll (baboon style as he said) in order to save both our lives. What a guy :)

We escaped only to find... OH NO... A horrible stone witch. She had this spooky head that moved to watch you as you moved around.

Losing hope of finding any door that would lead somewhere not dangerous, I had a quick rest in this lovely garden while waiting for Thom (you're surprised he was walking slow after the Troll?)

When he caught up we avoided two 'orrible women who were wandering around gesturing at each other constantly with HUGE arses (if they by any chance come across this blog and recognise themselves - umm... I'll cover uncomfortable truths in a bit)

It's hard to describe how much work has been put into this sim, it's something else. Just seeing all the details, simple touches, pose balls, dance areas etc... has to be experienced.

We had a dance, of course before moving on to find new adventures...

The lighthouse was very well done, the lights were incredible. Climbing it was a bit of a bitch due to camming issues but we managed it, despite Thom trying to get fresh at the top of the staircase.

Just when we thought it was about over, we found another teleportation thingy device and went to a camp in the desert.

This little place was the cherry on the icing on the cake...

A lovely tent in sumptuous fabrics with menus and poseballs all over the place. I'm ashamed to say we didn't even go outside. I decided I was a Princess, banished there for being 'bad' by her evil father the King and Thom was a pirate who washed up on shore after a shipwreck and wandered days into the desert before I found him and brought him back to life by... I'll leave it there :)

Don't you leave it there though, go explore this amazing place! Retropolis

***

I have some random SL photos I've taken that I also want to show here

First off, me and Pixie Pie, performing the pointy bottom dance*

* to be mentioned again in first life bit - eek

The almost obligatory snap of Josielo Ceriano going about her 'business'. I have installed a ladies bathroom behind the curtain on the left on the stage for those interested in using the facilities.

Cisa Batista fainted and I accidentally fell on top of her with my hand on her breast. Honest yer Honour!

Graz Firecaster with his surrogate son, Swan Vestas (Boo)

Me and Thom having deck time accompanied by yet another noob guy who landed to have a closer look. This one did not say 'Want to do one scene the three' although it was possibly on his mind :)

***

Me and Thom spent a few days together in first life this week, with the highlight of that being attending a Crocodiles gig in Nottingham. For those of you who have not yet embraced the Crocs fully, you have an absolute duty to do so. Do not cheat your ears any longer...

There's a few morsels for you.

Anyway, back to the gig... we set out fairly early to get a few beers in before arriving at the venue, the Bodega Club and found to our great shock that it was a really small venue.

We got in there as they were setting up and I swear down there were no more than 40 people there, mostly aged about 18-21 years old (Student City) and me and Thom, who were umm... older :)

The young cool indie dudes were not dancing, they occasionally tapped a foot, but mostly they stayed quite still hoping they looked good and someone noticed.

Me and Thom danced like nobody was watching. We did the pointy bum dance (* see above) and waved our arms around and spilled a bit of beer and yelled between tracks and basically probably made the young people wince with embarrassment.

Did we give a great big flying fook? NO :)

Gigs are made to be enjoyed, I go there to see, not to be seen.

The set was awesome, they sound at least as good live as they do recorded. My only criticism was that they did not do enough from their new album and the whole set could have been longer, I think it was about 50 minutes.

Afterwards, they simply climbed down from the stage with their cans of Red Stripe and sat round to hang out. Having already eschewed cool in favour of experience, we headed over and introduced ourselves and raved about their sound, their songs, their two albums etc. The singer, Brandon, kindly signed our tickets (To Tom and Mary - ah well, close!)

We stayed and got pissed, adopting the bass player and talking to the nice young people for quite some time until I got a bee in my bonnet.

Copious lager and sambuca can do this to a girl :/ I got too honest and when I saw the young uber hip, too cool for school, afro'd guy who I suspected was their UK Tour Manager, I went over and accosted him. He said he was (so my instincts were good) and I then proceeded to tell him that I thought he was making a mess of it. That there had been insufficient promotion, no merchandising, the venue was too small and that it could all have been so much better if someone else had done it (me? I wonder hahaha) and all of this in front of Brandon...

Yeah ok, I'm only half as brave as I make out - all that happened and yes I am a tiny teeny bit embarrassed now. I wish I had kept my own counsel with the Manager but as for the rest - PARTY ON DUDES!

Big hugs y'all xoxox

OH. and P.S. There was a really funny thing happened on Tuesday night with Thom, but I can't really say what here... so I'll just say to him, yeah I had first dibs... problem?

You get me closer to God

2010-09-27T16:54:00.002+01:00

Any NiN fans out there will just love these remixes - http://remix.nin.com/

Go have a looksee.

Proper blog post to follow xoxo

Guess who's back...

2010-09-18T13:16:00.003+01:00

Oh alright, I know I've been back from my holiday for a whole week and no blog entry, but honest guv, I have good reasons.

I'll get to them in good time...

First off I want to share 'Neighbours II' with you. You may recall an unfortunate series of incidents in my last blog post relating to my new neighbours. Well, I read Mae's comment and decided that probably was the way to go and got myself ready to go out one day to shop with half a mind to buy them a tin of biscuits or some flowers or a "Welcome to your new home" card (although I didn't know their names so decided against that).

I got into my car and realised belatedly that there was someone outside on next door's drive and immediately felt silly. So I decided to ignore them for now, get on with my driving and make amends later. I backed off my drive quite fast in order to look efficient and busy and THWACK RUMBLE CRASH hit my recycling bins so hard I pushed them out into the middle of the road.

**Blushes**

I had to get out of the car, retrieve the bins, stick my arse in the air while checking underneath the car for any lids jammed against my undercarriage, put them back on the drive. As I did, I saw the neighbour man looking at me and he said "Hello" (in the tone of a man who is already backing away). I said "Hiiii" in a high overly happy voice. He began to walk back into his house, so in desperation I called out "I just hit my recycling bins!" and without glancing back he said "Yes".

:(((((

He so hates me! I gave up on the idea of the gift at that point figuring it's probably best to leave them alone for a while - like six months or something.

***

After that I needed a holiday and luckily, that's just what I had organised. A week away with my Mum in Hunstanton. My Mum, at 70, has more energy than twin 5 year olds and likes a beer and a laugh, so we were looking forward to letting our hair down a bit.

Sadly as soon as we got there, I got broken. I've been a bit poorly on and off for a few weeks (nothing to worry about just annoying) and it left me without much energy or vim and vigour. So we managed to drag ourselves out that day to have a look round and found it was charming... but quiet.

I was just whinging that I had driven for five and a half hours and dragged the cases inside and needed a nap, when bizarrely I saw some old neighbours from years ago in a pub beer garden. We went and joined them and spent a good half an hour saying 'OMIGOD, fancy seeing you here' etc.

Anyway... this couple have been together knocking 20 years now, they get along great and are totally made for each other and the only slight bugbear the Mrs seems to have is that I dated him as a teenager for a couple of months before she met him, leading her to believe that somehow there is still a massive attraction between us. She actually came to my house one night about midnight, drunk (luckily so was I) to ask if I was still in love with him. I said to her, "Hun, I was never in love with him. We went to a karaoke night a few times, was nothing".

Anyway, I'm deeply joyous about the fact that she seems to be over it, at least I hope so.

Me and Mum had a good laugh and got quite drunk - well she says she wasn't, but hell I was. And we left to get chips and wobble home.

The next morning Mum announces that she has left her medications at home and that she had been due to take them that day. We began a day of phoning everyone, her doctors, local doctors, Boots the Chemist and took no less than 3 trips to the local doctors surgery to eventually succeed and get her tablets. Oh the relief when finally at 5pm we arrived home and I said I wanted to go read my book for an hour.

After 5 mins there was a tentative knock at my bedroom door

MUM: Sorry to bother you
ME: S'okay what's up?
MUM: I umm...
ME: What? (feeling a bit alarmed now)
MUM: (Draws her hand out from behind her back) ... found my pill box
ME: Hahahahhahaha

So, yeah... 8 hours of us both getting pissy with the medical health profession and they were on her bedside table. :D

You have to laugh or you'd cry.

We spent the next couple of days wandering while my Mum talked a LOT and we examined every item in the pound shops and ate far too many cooked breakfasts.

By Wednesday I was very glad that Thom was due to arrive and shake it up a bit and we all went out that night for something to eat and some beers. We had a hoot :)

Mum was keen to get on the pool table (she used to captain a good team in the league) and she whooped both our asses. Sighs. Sometimes I wish she'd do more knitting but hey, she has the party gene.

Me and Thom rounded the evening off with a couple of sambucas which sustained us til we got back to the cottage and we all had some whisky and gingers and we sang, probably very badly, til quite late.

After Mum had gone to bed (singing so long, farewell, auf wiedersehn etc), me and Thom spent quite some time on the living room floor doing god knows what - we can't remember too well - and eventually rolled into bed as it was getting light.

Thursday we ventured out, feeling distinctly blurry and a bit queasy (Me and Thom that is, Mum must drop e's in the morning to be like she is all the time. She'd keep talking and we'd be 'yeahhh')

We went down to the seafront and I took this picture... It was a lovely hot sunny day, with odd lighting and soon after I took this picture it threw it down - you know the kind of day :)

The end of the week was uneventful, with lots of tidying up, driving home and settling back in to a 'routine'

***

Last week I began a work placement with Graz's RL company. I'm learning html at the moment and will eventually learn a bit of Php (whatever that is). He says I'm doing fine. Well actually he says I'm doing really well :D

So that's good innit? But it also explains my lack of time in SL and the fact this last week has been blogless.

I'm with him for another 3 weeks and at the end of that time, we will take over the world, so watch out world... you're going to be << div class="align-right">> sorted out! << /div>>

(Yes I know that html is wrong, but if I do it right, it just aligns my text to the right in blogger and you won't get the joke, eh)

And no, that doesn't mean I'm a div - although we all know I am :)

Big hugs, more when I get spare finger key pressing time xox

Sharing, bearing and the Job Centre caring

2010-08-31T20:59:00.008+01:00

Evening all!

First off I want to talk to you about what happens when women get the chocolate craving. They briefly check the immediate area for a hot naked man, and usually upon finding none, they go after their main goal - something chocolatey smooth and delicious.

This happened to me last week and I trotted off to the local shop and found this...

Ohhh yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes!, yes!, YES! YES! YES! YES!

but then, I made the mistake of turning over my 'Treat Bag' before opening it and I found this...

No :( Whyyyyy? That is so unfair, for it to say share with family and friends. Why would I want to share my treat bag with any of my loved ones? I would not. Quite simply, they should go get their own.

But now I knew that I wouldn't be able to enjoy the chocolate if I didn't share it because I would feel guilty. So I had to wait to eat them, and then share. Weep for me women of the world.

***

Secondly, I've decided I would like a system whereby people can tell I'm peed off from the back of my head. Cats have this mechanism and it seems unfair that we have not evolved to share it. I post examples of my two looking fed up below.

They wanted food, but it could be used when you have to go the supermarket with PMT, or want to walk through your own home without anyone asking if you're ok. Answers on a postcard please people.

***

Yesterday was my set at the wunnerful Pig and Whistle and it was also Graz Firecaster's RL birthday. I don't normally go much for people doing RL celebrations in SL, cus we have rezzdays for that, but as we all forgot Graz's rezzday last year, I thought it might be nice

N.B. Please note my bugbear at this point about ppl not nudging you when their rezzdays are coming up. Having a few hundred friends on SL, I don't go through your profiles entering them into my calendar, so please - have a heart, a week before, tip us the nod :)

Anyway, back from whinge city and ready to party...

We put out a birthday bear, balloon banner and Graz had a huge birthday card from all his friends on SL. Being a bit wahay, he sat on the bear and was soon joined by numerous of his friends. Many people managed to squish on, even with Tris taking up a little more space than was polite (darned Americans eh ;))

Someone tipped me off that Demos had an unusual hairdo, reminding me forcefully of Limahl of Kajagoogoo (have I just shown my age?)

I'm not going to say who egged me on to blog it
...
...
...

Finally, Iggy came back after a fortnight off SL and assured me that The Soup Kitchen will be back on at AAi on Thursday at 1pm slt. Bring it! (minestrone).

Don't be put off by him looking bored, he always looks that way.

***

Everybody needs good neighbours – and my neighbours were not that nice. I mean they did a lot of mowing and car waxing, they didn’t have noisy sex, but they were jus t not friendly. So... when they put their house on the market and it sold quickly, I was looking forward to a new start with new neighbours.

The day after the old neighbours moved out, I heard some noises on next door’s driveway and, despite having very bad hair and being in my dressing gown, I went and peered out of the front door.

To my HORROR, a man was standing there looking at me. I confess, I acted purely on instinct and shut the door quickly and ran back into the living room.

Two minutes later there was a knock at the door and no way was I going to answer it to a strange man looking like that, so I didn’t and then, double horrors, my ex spouse/housemate pulled his car onto our drive at the same time as our other next door neighbour pulled onto hers and I could hear them talking to the man

I continued to hide until ‘Jim’ began knocking on the front door. I had unwittingly, in my panic, put the catch on the door and locked him out – so I had to go and let him in.

So, umm...not an ideal start. Neighbour man probably thinks I am the mad wife in the attic.
Jim told me the guy looked a bit scruffy, but we didn’t want to judge too early. Then the next day Jim told me that I had to come look out the kitchen window. I saw this...

Yep, a tatty cream sofa upside down on their front lawn, along with their bed. I was still feeling slightly smug as I took the photo until I realised that the man was standing in the back of the lorry, watching me take a photo of him moving his furniture :(:(:(

Honestly? I don’t anticipate having great neighbour relations with the new neighbours and I can only say that it is my fault. From the beginning, for being a fooking loon.

***

Job Centre again today, and those of you who have been reading for some time may recall a young chap there who kept staring at my boobs and talking about goblins.

Well, it had to happen one day that I got him again, and today was that day...

He called me over by positively shouting my surname over and over, even though I was only 6 feet away and I sat down.

HIM: Right, the time now is 2.11, and your signing time was 2.05 (looks at me severely)
ME: I’ve been here since 1.55
HIM: Oh
Awkward silence, he cops a quick glance at my boobs and I sighed.
HIM: Have you applied for any jobs in the last fortnight?
ME: Yes, in fact I have a log here of all the job searching I have done (produces notebook)
HIM: It’s not an actual log
ME: (realising it’s a joke) haha, no.
HIM: Okay, Personal Assistant to Director at Derby City Council (types it in)
HIM: So you’d be the horn on the ram?
ME: (realising he means Derby City are known as the rams) Ah yes I suppose so
HIM: (mumbles) horny rams
ME: (looks at shoes embarrassed)
HIM: That was a bit of a woolly joke
ME: Er yes, I just hope they don’t baa me
HIM: Hahahahaha (pauses) Hahahaha (pauses again, looks at boobs) Baaaaaaa. Baaaaaaaaa.
HIM: That was much better than my jokes
ME: Oh I don’t know about that. I think you are the punmeister.
HIM: Hahahahahhaha
ME: (beam me up Scotty) So, I also applied for this role, as you can see (points at notebook)
HIM: Okay... Yes I see (enters some information and then comes across a bit he can’t read) Sorry, I don’t understand that bit.
ME: Oh it says Course Director. Sorry my handwriting is difficult to read.
HIM: No, it’s not your handwriting, it’s my eyes. I’m finding it hard to see today.
ME: Oh
HIM: Okay if you can just sign here for me please, if you wouldn’t mind, because that would be good.
ME: Ok (signs)
HIM: (Stares at the twins again and then back at the desk) Look! There is a little green square on your signing book
ME: Oh, so there is
HIM: Sometimes they’re orange
ME: Oh
HIM: I met a woman called Orange once
ME: Was it her surname?
HIM: Oh yes, they do exist... Mrs Orange she was called.
ME: I see. Are we done now?
HIM: Until next time (silently says goodbye to my boobs and then glances up) bye!
ME: Bye

ANYONE in that room who does not actually want a job must be more nuts than I am and possibly even more nuts than the staff, but admittedly, that would be pretty nuts.

***

So, that was the week that was... next week I am on holiday which is YAY. I'll bring you back some rock with rude words running through the middle if I can. xoxox

***

***

Ohhhh addendum! I just found this and it's sidesplittingly funny. I only just realised you can get certain statistics from blogger about how people find your blog. Most people come directly to it, or via 2nd hub, Moonletters or friend's blogs. However, a few visitors came because of things they searched for in Google.

Hold onto your hats, they are well worth a squizz, I mean a squirt, I mean umm... a quick glance.

Click on it to view it clearly and then press the back button on your browser to return to the blog.

I'm loving the random ones :DDDDDD

Anyone for a game of Bleugh?

2010-08-21T16:48:00.004+01:00

Hello Petals

This has been a funny old week, and therefore this entry is both late and somehow insubstantial.

I've been FL (first life) most of it.

Last weekend (Saturday - Monday) Thom and I went away FL to a nice little village on the Nottinghamshire/Leicestershire border and spent a few days in a little cottage. It was a converted barn. We normally like to arrive together, so as to minimise the 'dirty weekend' feel and maximise the 'we are a normal couple who wanted to go away for a few days' image to the owners.

This time however, travelling together was impractical and a much shorter journey was had by both of us simply meeting up there.

We had vaguely discussed meeting at a pub nearby and leaving one car there so that we could assume our respectable images, but as Thom was not around on my arrival and I didn't fancy sitting half an hour alone in a busy pub, I went to the cottage alone.

I was dying for a wee, so got there, parked up, let myself in (he had told me the key would be under the doormat) and relieved myself (oioi).

I had just begun to look around when there was a knock at the door so I answered it and it was the lady owner asking if all was okay and if Thom had received the email she had sent him in confirmation saying where they key was. I said he had but she was obviously kind of peering round me to check that he wasn't there. So I said, 'He's not here yet, possibly lost his way or been delayed, but he shouldn't be long' She offered that I could call him from her house but I respectfully declined and with one last glance at my empty wedding finger, she smiled and left.

I'm probably over sensitive but I find this kind of thing a little embarrassing since once we stayed in a hotel and I got lost in the hotel after stropping off due to a row we had in the lift (yeah I know). I had found my way back to reception and unable to remember the room number, I asked the guy on reception to put a call through to the room so I could speak to Thom and find the room. He asked if I was his wife (?!?) I mean! In this day and age. I said, if I tell you that I am his wife, will you let me speak to him? He said yes, I said 'then yes I am' Grrrr.

So yeah... anyway, back to this weekend. Thom arrived and all was well, we loved the place and set off to the next village to find a shop. On the way out of the shop, we bumped into the woman cottage owner and I introduced Thom. She was very nice and asked 'Are you staying here for anything special?'.

We both umm'd and I looked at my feet and Thom said 'Er, no just a relaxing break' and we passed it off.

This is my 'word' to all accommodation owners... you know why we're there, we know why we're there, please please please do not ask. It just makes us all feel awkward.

That night we went to the village pub for a couple of hours and had a few beers, they had really gone to some effort to make the place lovely, lotsa flowers and little details that made it nice (along with a very active fountain that made you pee constantly)

The locals seemed fine, if a tad posh - 'a bit horse and hound' was how Thom put it, and it was, but we liked it anyway. We sat inside for a while and I noticed some guys by the bar, one of which had a very green rugby shirt on and when he turned *horrors* I saw it said 'Bollocks to Blair'

Cripes - I mean, how umm

Well, in my local he'd get the crap beaten out of him for wearing it, but we weren't in my local so that didn't happen, we just snickered at him quietly.

And also... how very out of date. I just can't imagine anyone thinking 'Yes, that is it, that is the item I want to wear to go out on Saturday night'

The rest of the weekend passed peaceably enough, we watched some DVD's, I did some nice cooking and we enjoyed the beautiful surroundings.

***

The weather has been bleugh this week, I've felt bleugh this week and thus the title of the blog. I'm hoping next week will be less bleugh and more Yay!

Now I'm going to take some painkillers, lie down and listen to Stephen Fry read Harry Potter - the ultimate comfort.

Chaste cheek kisses to you all, thanks for reading xox

When Thomcat's away...

2010-08-12T18:09:00.017+01:00

Meri Mouse has to find other things to do! However, I'm going forwards in going backwards and need to start from the very beginning

At Almo Unplugged's set at AAi on Saturday, Thom lived the dream - being arfed really hard by two women at once - me and Josie. Sadly, Thom was afk at the time getting a Jameson and ginger, and as such didn't feel a thing :D

Surprise hunny!

I'm beginning to worry about Josie tho, I mean, on the face of it, she's SUCH a nice girl. But underneath there is a darkness. She saunters in, says 'Hey Meri, lets double arf Thom' - I was like um, okay. And then she goes off and does this behind the bar...

Jells who is in charge of Health and Safety at AAi thinks that we have a faulty cider tap and I have not so far disillusioned her.

***

Sunday was Thom's set at AAi and his last night on SL before going off with his offspring to a seaside folk week. (He had already packed his sandals and stick on beard)

Cisa, my wifey, was a bit Adam Ant that night which make my knees go wobbly

Thom was also looking hot doing that 'I'm vaguely kinda dancing but so casually I don't care' thing and wearing a new shirt I'd managed to buy him when we were out shopping the other night. Jellie looks on sternly from her portrait on the wall, no doubt thinking he should not be smoking indoors.

***

Monday I did my set at the awesome Pig and Whistle and thankfully the great and the good turned out to support me. Graz did an alt informer notice for me (since I had those rights taken for being solely responsible for the war in Vietnam or something, about 6 months ago - no I kid you not, that was given to a mutual friend as a reason)

And on Tuesday (?!?! I think, wow I lose track of the days) I did some upkeep and improvements at the club. Renewed the stream for a further 3 months and spent aaaaaaaaaaages fixing up the garden to make it more user friendly for DJ's.

Now it's fairly simple, the DJs can use the small panel on the fence labelled SHX to gain remote control of the radio upstairs, so can log in and out, put the radio on etc. and because for some reason the radio tipping system did not wish to work in the garden, I went and bought a basic group controlled tip jar that they can login to and it is the prim with the record case underneath.

So yay! The SHX prim announces the songs above it in text, the other box pays the money over, we have sunshine, butterflies, wild flowers and music! What more could we need?

Oh by the way, the dance machine down there is a greeny globe revolving over the radio bit... I wanted something natural looking considering the surroundings but it should work the same as upstairs :)

I also fixed Graz's carpet (not a euphemism) - I have to say, this is something I have had to do several times, especially for Graz and I am wondering if I have a reputation as SL's premier carpet fitter. Kinda PrimFloors2Go or umm Carpet Whorehouse, I mean Warehouse :/

Cisa and Pixie dropped by to admire my handiwork and take the mickey out of Graz (of course) and after hanging out for a while I went home and checked for tidying, washing, gardening that needed to be done (none), checked my answerphone for messages from Thom (one - Dear Meri, having fab time, weather shit, see you soon, Thom) and I decided to go exploring.

I found a steampunk place, well namely Steelhead Boomtown.

This is a sim dedicated to the Steampunk style and I did obtain a notecard about it, but to be honest, the notecard was a bit pants. The place wasn't though, it was huge and proper interesting! You should pay it a visit I think. I tp'd Graz in to accompany me and also with the intention of interviewing him most heinously for this blog - something I intend to do with various of my friends, jus' for fun!

Me and Graz at the entrance, or was it the exit, it was a slightly confusing place for me

A dinky caravan, a hoss and a haunted house in the background. If I could whittle pegs, I'd have moved straight in fo sho.

Looking down from the top into a weird steampunky basement kinda thing, I couldn't find a legitimate way down there (although I'm sure there is one) so I sat in a chair I found by camming

I felt like the little person who lives inside a cuckoo clock and makes sure it all works fine. What do you mean there are no little people in cuckoo clocks? Who do you think feeds the cuckoo?

This is the view of the whole basementy area we landed in, but! much excite! there was a spooky passage/cavern leading off from it that went on for miles underneath the town

Eventually, after crossing some dangerous terrain, we finally come to an underground bunker with a tatty and slightly damp sofa and take a pew. I begin my interview with Graz.

Mericat Ireland: What is your worst personal habit?
Graz Firecaster: I tap constantly, feet, fingers, drum on the arms of chairs, steering wheels, people's heads
Mericat Ireland: lol, why?
Graz Firecaster: Cos I got riddim!
Graz Firecaster: there is drumming in me head
Mericat Ireland: Would you say you are hyperactive?
Graz Firecaster: yes very
Mericat Ireland peels Graz from the ceiling

Mericat Ireland: ok next question...
Mericat Ireland: Did you choose the name Firecaster because you thought you would get called Fartcaster?
Graz Firecaster: haha, it has a ceriain "ring" to it
Mericat Ireland: eww
Graz Firecaster: but no, originally I chose Graz Melody but I screwed up the form and when I went back that wasn't available, so I chose Firecaster cos it sounded a bit like a Fender guitar (Telcaster or Stratocaster)
Mericat Ireland: 'scuse me i'm rolling a ciggie, not analysing your answer with my hands steepled against my chin going hmm
Graz Firecaster: don't top load it then pass me the butt end
Mericat Ireland: About that... So the rumours about you liking the butt end are true?
Graz Firecaster: only when it comes to wandsworth woodbines
Mericat Ireland: that must be from olden times, never heard of wandsworth woodbines
Graz Firecaster: Camberwell Carrots
Mericat Ireland: Portsmouth Potatoes?
Graz Firecaster: hmm I've never tried rolling one in the shape of a potato
Mericat Ireland: We don't want to go anywhere near things in the shape of a potato
Graz Firecaster: that's tuberist!

(Google stock image, not anyone's actual tuber)

Mericat Ireland: Describe yourself in 5 words...
Graz Firecaster: SL or RL?
Mericat Ireland: Well now that's an interesting response. Is there a difference?
Graz Firecaster: looks wise yes
Mericat Ireland: Oh we all know what you look like... describe your personality then
Graz Firecaster: creative, daydreamer, thinker, carer, worrier
Graz Firecaster: just as well you didn't say six
Mericat Ireland: oh go on then, what would number six have been?
Graz Firecaster: classified, I'll tell you in 50 years
Mericat Ireland: In 50 years, I suspect we'll both be fertiliser

Mericat Ireland: Tell me about a time you were embarrassed...
Graz Firecaster: I got drunk once and mooned my next door neighbours, that was embarrassing the next day
Mericat Ireland: Did you hate them?
Graz Firecaster: no we got on well
Mericat Ireland: ASBO Graz
Graz Firecaster: after that I had to entertain them at dinner parties
Mericat Ireland: you had dinner parties for your neighbours? How very Chelsea
Graz Firecaster: no they had the parties, I'd run through their house naked
Mericat Ireland: i'm glad i don't live near you
Graz Firecaster: I do call outs but have to charge for mileage (hard times)
Mericat Ireland: at these 'parties' - are all the people there ladies with 'L' plates on and veils?
Graz Firecaster: yes I think they run a driving school or something
Mericat Ireland: I see. Do they touch you inappropriately?
Graz Firecaster: no it's always appropriate touching
Mericat Ireland: haha
Mericat Ireland: and again, moving on (how do you make me want to move on? You bring everything back to potato penises, i think)
Graz Firecaster: I'm shocked!
Mericat Ireland: yeah yeah
Graz Firecaster: why bring penises (peni?) into it
Mericat Ireland: I didn't!
Graz Firecaster: you did
Mericat Ireland: MOVING ON!

Mericat Ireland: Why do you use SL?
Graz Firecaster: I don't... SL uses me
Mericat Ireland: tell me more
Graz Firecaster: RL is too expensive so I top up the fun with SL
Mericat Ireland: is a damn fine reason, me too
Graz Firecaster: nods
Mericat Ireland: When I get a bit fed up rl, I can go on a shopping spree in sl and spend a thousand linden, can’t do that in rl. And dayum, Meri looks finer in threads than I do (and out of them)
Graz Firecaster: retail therapy transcends worlds

Mericat Ireland: Tell me how you feel about your avatar...
Graz Firecaster: when I first started in SL I was 100% detached from my avatar, but as time has gone on he feels like an extension of me. raz Firecaster: I wouldn't have him do or say anything I wouldn't, and he dresses exactly as i like to dress (money permitting anyway)
Mericat Ireland: do you ever feel protective of him?
Graz Firecaster: yes I guess so, in a weird intangible way
Mericat Ireland: me too, i feel like Meri is me, but somehow younger
Graz Firecaster: Yes. I think someone's avatar says a lot about their personality
Mericat Ireland: Oh?
Graz Firecaster: well i think in a lot of cases the avatar is a creative outlet
Graz Firecaster: we are constrained in RL by our physical attributes and finances
Mericat Ireland: So, I have to ask now... What do you think Meri tells you about my
personality?
Graz Firecaster: Knowing you fairly well, I think Meri is a projection of your
nature. She’s pretty, flirty, fun, at times childlike
Mericat Ireland: awww - slaps you about a bit (I was anticipating libel)
Graz Firecaster: thanks
Mericat Ireland: you're welcome

Mericat Ireland: Oh i know what i want to know
Graz Firecaster: ok
Mericat Ireland: What song do you want people to remember you by? Like what would you choose as a funeral song?
Graz Firecaster: well there is one song that means more to me that any other song ever has or ever will, it's in my picks and it's the most perfect sentiment any one person can express to any other, be they a friend, a family member or a partner.
Mericat Ireland: There is a light that never goes out – The Smiths?
Graz Firecaster: Yes
Mericat Ireland: :) Nice choice
Graz Firecaster: that'll get ‘em blubbing in the chapel ;)
Mericat Ireland: So will. I'm going for 'Girls just wanna have fun' Cyndi Lauper – I do love irony
Graz Firecaster: I think that sums you up perfectly :)

Mericat Ireland‧: How would you rate your rl guitar playing from 1-10 with 1 being me(had 2 years of classical lessons and still think you need a stick to play it) and someone like Jimi Hendrix as 10?
Graz Firecaster‧: blimey, about 3 then
Mericat Ireland‧: i suspect you're being modest, tell the truth
Graz Firecaster‧: i suspect not, you can't handle the troof
Mericat Ireland‧: i tuck a spatula between the strings ‘cus i get it confused with plectrum
Graz Firecaster‧: haha, i get confused with speculum
Mericat Ireland‧: hahaha
Graz Firecaster‧: can get messy
Mericat Ireland‧: i bet
Graz Firecaster‧: and i always need new strings

Graz Firecaster‧: am i hired?
Mericat Ireland‧: yes you're hired
Mericat Ireland‧: what's the job?
Graz Firecaster‧: manager of something?
Mericat Ireland‧: oh yeah, and when i remember where, we can escape these tunnels of steam and punk
Graz Firecaster‧: we can?
Mericat Ireland‧: no
Graz Firecaster‧: are you sure?
Mericat Ireland‧: no
Graz Firecaster‧: no
Mericat Ireland‧: i'm meri

:D Thanks Graz for your patience during this interview. (Note to reader: Graz has always said his penis is in the shape of a potato, nobody seems to know if he means rl or sl and to be honest, what I do know gives me nightmares, thus all the tubers)

***

Last night was Jukebox Fury at AAi, I think the word Gr*z has been said enough during this blog entry so I shall say it no more (such an attention whore inne?) and simply say it was a larf, a jape and there was excellent tuneage.

I tried to take a photo of me and the girls dancing, but sadly took it from behind pretty much. I think we all look swell tho :D

I made a new friend too, which is always great and to her I say 'Every cloud has a silver girlfriend'

Big thanks to you all for making my week so fun and keeping me company. xox

Flirting and Squirting

2010-08-05T12:43:00.008+01:00

I know I normally write about actual things that have happened to me during the week, and I will get on to some of that for sure, but I wanted to look at the subject of my reputation within SL.

As everyone knows I think, in FL I am a shy and retiring little flower, happiest when knitting hats for kittens and pruning my erm (nips off into google) hibiscus!

In SL for some reason, I seem to have got a reputation for being a flirt. Some days I ask myself how it is even possible because I’m one of the least flirty people I know.

And then Thom and I had a conversation about me not feeling very well that day and certainly not up to any schenanagins...

Thomas Thaler: next time meri gets horny and i have a headache
Thomas Thaler: i will resist all temptations
Thomas Thaler: including .. but not limited to
Thomas Thaler: sucking finger
Mericat Ireland: haha
Thomas Thaler: wiggling ass
Mericat Ireland: hahah
Thomas Thaler: revealing cleavage
Thomas Thaler: then talking about dirty vids
Mericat Ireland: the saying of mmhmm
Thomas Thaler: yep that too
Mericat Ireland: hair twiddling
Mericat Ireland: tongue clicking
Thomas Thaler: yeah
Mericat Ireland: winking
Thomas Thaler: yep
Mericat Ireland: okay hun, it's good to note these things for yourself, I wouldn’t want you to feel taken advantage of.

But! In my defence, those appear to be physical ‘tells’ of flirting that would not be visible within SL.

I put it to you, my friends, my judge and jury, that actually, I am not a flirt at all, it’s all in YOUR minds :)

P.S. Arfing doesn’t count as flirting, it’s a sign of affection.

***

Last weekend was Pixelfest, a music festival organised by Lucifer Bates and RussodelRusso Husar at the Looni Bin. A wide variety of acts and DJ’s were on and I was to follow Elvis. Yep, not something many can claim!

I organised my set the day before and was feeling fiiiiine, I love things like that – until I got there and then upon seeing Elvis and his band on the huge stage with their huge shiny twirly props I thought ‘How the hell am I going to be able to follow that?’

I have to ‘fess, it was not all down to staging either, Bubba was really good, the way he talked to the crowd and joked around was so professional and relaxed.

So yeah, I was scared. But I was heartened by the fact that most people stuck around after Bubbaelvis had gone to listen to my set and to solve the fact that I was one small ava on one huge stage without twirly things to make me look biiiiiiiiiiig, I got some of my friends up dancing with me.

As I said on stream between songs ‘I’m not Elvis, I can’t fill the stadium, but hell, at least I can fill the stage’

It was fab – a great event, organised by some great people. Those folks at the Looni Bin sure know how to make you feel welcome. I will most definitely be going over to say hi.

I’ve deliberately left this until last because it made me laugh soooooooo hard.

The names have been changed to protect the unpeed upon.

Anyone who has been to one of my sets before knows that if you don’t dance, I threaten to pee on your shoes. Well it was a big stage and I felt that I probably couldn’t aim accurately enough to pee on anyone’s shoes, so... I said;

Mericat Ireland: Now dance afore i spray pee
Mericat Ireland: YEEEEEHAAAWWWWW!!!!!!
Hermon Hammerer: lol mericat
P*nd*ra Br**db*n: Have we just been threatened with urine?
P*nd*ra leaves

Hmm... yep. I threatened an audience with ‘urine’ – grins. Just goes to show, you can’t please all of the people all of the time. Ironically, I nearly peed my pants laughing. Poetic justice some might say. Punk lives through Mericat Ireland hahahahaa!

Many thanks to Loonia,, Hermon, Janus, Lucifer and Russo for putting up with me.

***

Finally, I took some photos yesterday and here are some gratuitous Meri photos, just cus I’m vain that way

I do love playing with photos from SL and in these, I have messed around a bit with backgrounds, in one I've put in a camera - as you can see - but I have not airbrushed the ava - so hey, I can't be that vain :)

I have to go to the Dentist this afternoon because a tooth has been hurting - wah. So I'll catch you all again soon.

Big loves and thank you for another week of fun

Dirty dancing, getting clean and a story before bed

2010-07-29T10:22:00.008+01:00

Well hello!

I do have some dirt to dish this week, so now is the time to get a cup of tea and a kit-kat and settle down, hoping your name is not cropping up below :D

First in line for comment is Thom. He decided last Friday that it was time for his annual bath and so we surgically removed his converse and climbed on in. Was lovely and relaxing, he played us some tunes on the stream we have at home and we got prune like. It's easy to forget the kind of things you did regularly pre-club and nice to revisit them.

Sunday at Thom's set we had a riot, various people were there and one of them (Pasta Mann) offered to give someone a lapdance, if only he could. Well, I just happened to be carrying an exceptional lapdance chair in my inventory - one with facial expressions (haha) and sound (ooer).

The first pic is of Pasta performing various lapdancing and titilation activities on (poor) Scarlet Bowdit and the second is Scarlet and I looking slightly ruffled after I had rocked her through the 'Hot and Heavy' menu.

I quote one nice innocent bystander who said 'OMG, that doesn't look like lap dancing any more, that looks like sex on a chair!' /me nods.

It doesn't count as actual sex unless we had removed any clothes, I think, so we're both still intacta! :)

On Monday, Josielo Ceriano who shall henceforth be known only as "Josie" came home from her weekend away and invited me over to see her pixel paradise, her virtual vista, her er... place on sl. She has a lovely garden and shares my passion for prim gardens, it's obvious to tell and also has collected some unusual, moving and interactive art instalations.

Above you can see us sitting one of them, looking casual and quite arty ourselves, 'tis amazing how this rubs off on one - see, get me using the term one!

Then we went up into the sky to visit her skybox with more great pictures in and she deleted the floor. I admit this did slightly tarnish the smooth bohemian image so far portrayed but she got it back and finished my visit with a lovely hug. Awww. Thanks for a lovely time Josie!

As good as it is to know who your friends are, it is also good sometimes to find out when one of your friends is running amok and despoiling your good name.

I speak of course of Graz Firecaster, former bestie, former AAi Manager and former Chief Mugwump of the Wizengamot. You think you know someone and then... a little birdie gives you some info! :o

Apparently on Sunday night, while the good people of the world were ironing their socks ready for work the next day and putting their gerbils to bed, Graz was trying to scare perfectly respectable people around a camp fire at Moonletters by telling them a 'Fairy Story'

Shauna Vella: tell us a story ?Lol?
Graz Firecaster: once upon a time....
Graz Firecaster: lived a beautiful princess
Graz Firecaster: called colinella
Graz Firecaster: she was imprisoned in a box called aai
Graz Firecaster: and she had the right hump let me tell you
Graz Firecaster: one day a handsome prince
Graz Firecaster: called er Sean
Graz Firecaster: (ok maybe not so handsome)
Shauna Vella: did he have an accent?
Graz Firecaster: but a brave and fearless man
Graz Firecaster: he had a terrible accent yes
Graz Firecaster: well Sean put on his protective man bag
Graz Firecaster: and climbed to the aai tower pinnacle
Shane Wildmist: thought it was a box?
Graz Firecaster: Colinella was delighed to see him
Graz Firecaster: a box tower *cough*
Graz Firecaster: but the evil Merigon would not let Colinella leave
Graz Firecaster: she took off her clothes and turned Sean to stone
Cisa Batista: LOOOOOOOL
Graz Firecaster: Colinella was grief struck
Shane Wildmist: has this merigon bloke heard seans accent ?
Graz Firecaster: Merigon is a wicked witch Shane
Graz Firecaster: one look can strike terror into the hearts of men
Shane Wildmist: how wicked are we talking here?
Graz Firecaster: evil Shane
Graz Firecaster: well anyway
Graz Firecaster: Merigon kept a poor repressed house elf called Grazzle
Graz Firecaster: who's duty was to feed Colinella and wash the urinals
Shane Wildmist: poor ?
Graz Firecaster: brassic yes
Graz Firecaster: skint as
Shauna Vella: did Grazzle the house elf provide the music?
Graz Firecaster: yes he had great taste for an elf
Graz Firecaster: but I digress
Shane Wildmist: he was elf mod ?
Shauna Vella: did he sometimes hang out with modzzzz
Graz Firecaster: Grazzle was in love with Colinella
Cisa Batista: he only stole other's peeps record's boxes I think
Shane Wildmist: but sean was her man
Graz Firecaster: Grazzle cast a spell over the mod army
Graz Firecaster: and the mod army did march upon the tower
Graz Firecaster: lead by the gorgeous Cisa and Shauna
Graz Firecaster: two princesses from far off lands
Graz Firecaster: Cisa did let off much gestures
Graz Firecaster: and Shauna flicked her long dark hair over Sean
Graz Firecaster: the spell was broken
Graz Firecaster: Sean was alive!
Graz Firecaster: Grazzle took the opportunity to put on Catman
Cisa Batista: Cisa saved Sean to?
Graz Firecaster: and the place did jive
Graz Firecaster: Cisa put a bag over the evil Merigon
Graz Firecaster: and locked her in the basement
Graz Firecaster: Sean and Colinella kissed
Shane Wildmist: a tower has a basement?
Graz Firecaster: shhh
Graz Firecaster: details shane
Graz Firecaster: we need no detail
Cisa Batista: Sean is Colinella right?
Cisa Batista: I'm confused
Graz Firecaster: Sean and Colinella were married the very next day
Shauna Vella: Colinella is the camel
Graz Firecaster: a union of camel and beast
Graz Firecaster: Cisa and Shauna fought to the death to marry Grazzle
Graz Firecaster: so Grazzle was left broken hearted
Cisa Batista: what happened to Grazzle?
Graz Firecaster: and was forced to marry Merigon
Shauna Vella: did they both die?
Graz Firecaster: and lived forever in servitude
Graz Firecaster: yes both brown bread
Shane Wildmist: in the basement
Shauna Vella: ok this story choking me up now
Graz Firecaster: tragic
Shauna Vella: but that dying part..
Graz Firecaster: god i love that camel
Shauna Vella: Colin rules
Graz Firecaster: Colinella
Shauna Vella: right Colinella
Cisa Batista: you have a crush on the camel Graz?
Graz Firecaster: shhhh
Shane Wildmist: lol
Graz Firecaster: dont tell mer
Graz Firecaster: she'll deny me access rights
Shauna Vella: Lol

Evil Merigon huh? One look can strike terror into the hearts of men huh?

Well, I thought a response in kind was probably called for, so here goes - the fairy story as told by Meri...

Once upon a time there was a beautiful, kind and humble Queen called Meripops, who, together with King Thom of Dong, ruled fairly and wisely over the small and inclusive community of AAi.

One lovely sunny day, for days in AAi were always sunny, Meripops was feeding and watering her camel friend, Colin (who is BOY) and was interrupted by a poor beggar boy called Graz. Meripops gave him food and drink and let him rest a while and was charmed by his quirky personality. Meripops offered Graz a place within AAi to call home and gave him a job as Chief Fairy.

All was happy at the little place and Meripops spent the days and nights happily dancing with her friends, King Thom of Dong, the Princesses Gafia, the Mods, those from the wondrous kingdom of Moonletters and the Sultans of Swing (sorry I know, that's a bad musical joke) and Chief Fairy Graz.

One day, when Meripops had finished feeding the poor starving children in other sims, she returned to the little castle and found, to her horror, that Graz was intefering most heinously with Colin.

Being a forgiving and most generous Queen, she enrolled Graz in for treatment at a local hospice and paid highly for a series of electric shock and aversion therapies, for which he would eventually be most grateful. King Thom was all for banishment but she had talked him around.

Everyone lived Happily Ever After. Although Graz was kept away from the animals in the future.

And that, my friends, is a PROPER fairy story.

And as proof, I include a photograph of Graz looking as he really does without the charm cast upon him by fair Meri.

OOOOOH Review!

2010-07-22T18:28:00.008+01:00

I've been threatening to do a full review of Bottle Bird - a newish venture from Filthy and Dirty Adored.

Filth tends to concentrate on the shoes and Dirty on the clothing. Their ethic is almost as important as the finished product and is unusual in SL. If I had to categorise it, I would call it organic.

They don't 'steal' textures for clothes from existing clothes (any non clothes makers out there may be a bit mystified by this, so I will explain). Many purveyors of fashion in SL (myself included) go and look at existing designs on the catwalks or from photographs and use that image - wow that makes it sound less fiddly than it is - to produce a replica or near as damnit in SL. Dirty prefers to construct the entire garment from scratch.

The same kind of ethic applies to the shoes and boots - Filthy makes them from sculpties and for size 0 feet on an average sized avatar. This precludes the need for scripts in the shoes for resizing.

Filth has avoided the 'skin tone matching' furore that seems to be a point of concentration for shoe makers and shoe wearers alike - the HUD never seems to be off my screen in some shoes as I tweak colour, nail polish, decorations, trim finishes etc.

The aim is to produce lower prim shoes and boots, that still look good and do not cause lag. The prims are modifiable and so you can take a copy and work on those without fear of ruining the original item. Just need a pose stand and a bit of patience occasionally but hey! we all managed it in the old days and you can end up with a far superior and more personal fit.

In addition, all shoes are sold with both alpha layer transparency and the dreaded invisiprims. Whenever I joyously bung my alpha layer on I can hear 'I bet that you look good on the dancefloor' going through my head, 'cus dayum, I look better without a block of ice around each foot.

Anyway, enough waffle, now lets get down to some serious images...

These bodies come in three colours - lime, watermelon and black (which is more a charcoal grey) They had the excellent and unexpected effect of making me feel like THIS video

Ohhh yeah... I didn't dare give a rear view but it had a nice cut, put it that way :)

Still with a 80's retro workouts in mind, I changed into the two pairs of 'very metal' ski pants (ski pants!)

You have the choice of whether or not to put the socks on, so they can just be leggings if you like and I particularly like the double zips at the back. It's just a little finishing touch that makes them feel different from the multitudes of other metallic leggings I own and wear.

And then (still bizarrely in the 80's) I put on the baggy assed dungarees, this time with THIS youtube video in my head. Yeahhhh swing em. Photo time!

I loved them... the only slight downside is that I seem to suffer from SL huge leg syndrome just under the prims - I'm sure much cleverer people than me know how to avoid that, but I don't. (No rude comments please about how it's not SL).

Moving on to the footwear now...

You will begin to see something of a theme... and I feel I can take some credit for this (haha) as Filthy was talking to me about what direction they should go in for boots and shoes and I suggested that he had always had very much his own style in SL and that the textures, colours and styles should just be exactly what he loved. I think he'd have gone down this route without my very wise and sage and much appreciated advice ;)

Soft ribbons and faded colours enhance the realism of the footwear and the closer you cam in, the more you can see how much effort has been put into the finer details. I've not custom fit any of the boots on purpose - equally I have not photoshopped any of the images, because I wanted readers to be able to see how they are 'out of the box' and how little editing they might have to do themselves, manually, in order for them to fit perfectly.

These are not your standard menu packed, script infested shoes - I concede, they might not be for everybody. But for those of you who wish to buck the trend, save the prim world and have the satisfaction of knowing how your boots do not damage the SL ozone layer, they are a gift.

Prices are very reasonable - I won't state them here, but below what you might expect to pay for work of this quality and that applies to the shoes and the clothing.

Overall, I'd say great work to both Filthy and Dirty for the quality and care put into every creation so far. You feel like you are wearing something somebody has cared about.

Visit them in world by pressing this LINKY THINKY

The Deliveryman Always Rings Twice

2010-07-21T19:09:00.006+01:00

Lots of ladies enjoy the company of small mechanical friends. No, I'm not talking about R2D2 here, but of even smaller and more battery powered pals. Some ladies have rabbits, and clever devices that look like they may also remove teeth and some of us prefer more... natural looking friends.

Are you with me on this? I realise I'm touching on something of a taboo, if you are following my meaning. If you are not following my meaning then please wind up your clockwork jumping frog and play happily with it for the next few mins. (You should be safe to rejoin the blog at the point where I say, I've never been so embarrassed in my life).

The other day, Thom and I had been spending some quality time together in SL and I was down in my living room. After we had finished, I decided to go and wash my friend 'Percy' (I named him after a favourite penguin) and I placed him on the bannister rail in my hallway, so that I would remember to take him back upstairs and put him in my bedside drawer where he lives.

And then I pootled around for a bit, watched a bit of TV, called my Mum - usual stuff.

The doorbell rang (you're way ahead of me here aren't you?) and I answered it and it was the parcel delivery person, collecting a parcel from Next that I was returning. He was a bit churlish and miserable and demanded that I provide him with the signable receipt. Well could I find the receipt? No. I searched and searched, leaving him standing at the door, waiting.

When I got back to the door, sans receipt, he seemed a bit more cheerful and reassured me that instead, he would pop back the next day and drop a receipt in for me. I thanked him sincerely for his kindness and he left.

I closed the door and turned around to see O.0. Horrors! Percy still sitting on the bannister rail in all his glory. In plain view of the door. I died a little inside that day.

The next day the delivery person rang my doorbell again and I ignored it, and he pushed the receipt through the door and I breathed a small sigh of relief.

I have NEVER been so embarrassed in my life!

Welcome back clockwork frog lovers. Hope you had fun :)

***

SL has not been kind to me of late, leading to various clothing disasters. On Thursday night I went out in a very odd outfit indeed, the underknickers from a prim skirt and a top I didn't know I was wearing. Needless to say, nobody was rude enough to tell me I looked shocking and I didn't find out until I got home and asked Thom if my cleavage enhancer made much of a difference. We compared photos

So yeah, I looked not stunning and my eyes were grey and blurry, but! the cleavage enhancer does work. So Yay! Go cleavage enhancers!

Then on Sunday, I managed to turn up at AAi topless :/ Not great... it took Annie Anton .3 of a second to IM me and tell me (thank you Gafia gurl) and the boys somewhat longer -.-

Sometimes, rezzing is cruel. I think it is fixed now but I have had to check outfits with various friends over the last few days to make sure I don't look an idiot* in public. (* That is, in my terms, some may think I look an idiot in an outfit I have chosen to wear)

All seemed to have returned to normal by last night when I went over to AAi to see Kimberley Sixpence do her mod set. Great tunes as usual and she looked reet funky, so I had to take a pic. You can also see the delovely Aston in the background.

In other club related news... (puts on clip on tie and faces camera)

Ice Halderman is now not leaving SL and is staying on at AAi as our Sunday DJ, which is marvellous! Sadly, Leelii Flanaghan is not going to be DJing any more on a Tuesday, which is very sad news.

The fabulous and confusicating Iggy Soup is starting at AAi on Thursday nights with 'The Soup Kitchen' drop in all ye homeless strays for something warming. It will be worth it, I assure you.

Thom and I are going to be having one of our short 'club holidays' which doesn't mean we won't be around at all, but does mean we'll be doing a bit more touristing in SL and visiting places we don't get to much. Be assured, we still love ya's.

Big hugs to you all, til next time xox Meri

NEWSFLASH: At some point over the next few days I am going to be doing a review of fabulous shop Bottle Bird and showing you some of their stuff. Keep your eyes peeled.

Meri thru' the Looking Glass

2010-07-14T17:53:00.012+01:00

Ever have a day that seems a tad surreal? Where strange things happen and you're not quite sure how to deal with them? Seems like every time I step foot out of the house something mad happens...

Yesterday I went out to the little village shopping area up the road from me. I like it because it's like something from 'League of Gentlemen'. It has a butchers, a bakers, a candlestick makers (a chemist, post office, general store, hairdressers etc too).

I parked up on double yellow lines outside the shops, as all the designated parking spaces were full (don't think too badly of me, everybody does there) and was about to begin my wandering when my phone rang, so I got back in the car and chatted to Thom for 20 mins or so, before getting out of the car and walking away. At this point I hear a massive parping behind me (NO!) and looked round and saw...

Yes, a big huge lorry and a very cross looking man waving his arms around. I stopped and watched him flail ineffectively in his cab for a minute and then realised that in neanderthal, he was indicating that he would like me to move my car into a space that had now become available behind me, so that he could park his lorry to deliver his bread.

I contemplated waving my arms back and making cross faces at him, but thought that ultimately this would do no good as he was right :(

I moved my car. As I walked from it towards the shop - and also the lorry - he wound his window down and we had a short convo thus

GESTICULATOR: Thanks so much for doing that *smiles*
ME: Er, you're welcome. You are quite right, but as I had been there for about 20 minutes I did not notice that a parking space had become available
GESTICULATOR: Well, I do appreciate it, most people would have just told me to F*@k off *smiles again*
ME: I see, would they. Well, glad to help. *does not smile*

So I carried on, did my shop and stopped to write a birthday card on the counter, while chatting with the nice gay lad who works there.

Then, the Lorry Driver walks in, demands the shop lad comes out to help him unload and is suitably rebuked when he is told he'll have to wait until he has finished helping customers. The Lorry Driver immediately becomes friendlier and backs out of the shop. Shop boy and I exchange sanctimonious little nods and mutterings about people who might be having a bad day etc.

Just as I finish sticking my stamp on the card and pick up my bags, the Lorry Driver comes back in with his paperwork and catches sight of me, and this is where it gets odd

GESTICULATOR: Oh thank you again for moving your car
ME: No problem
GESTICULATOR: Would you like to have a drink with me?
ME: What? Now?
GESTICULATOR: Well no, at some other time
ME: Erm, well no. Thanks but no.
GESTICULATOR: Why did you say 'What? Now?' then if you don't want to?
ME: Er, I don't know, I just don't want to thank you

He left the shop again and the shop boy said 'He's definitely having a bad day now' and we giggled a bit.

I left the shop to the tune of the Twilight Zone.

Then I went along to the Butchers, feeling discombobulated and ordered 4 cumberland sausages and a farmhouse loaf (they do great bread there for some reason).

The over jolly young butcher served me, as usual. He has adopted a personality based on a nice roly poly middle aged man, which doesn't entirely suit as he is about 20 and skinny.

Anyway, I digress. He put my purchases in my bag and said 'I used to want to be a baker but I couldn't get the dough together'.

I laughed politely and waited and he said 'I also wanted to be a doctor but didn't have the patience/patients'.

I smiled this time only, fearing that a little laughter would egg him on. And eventually he said £3.70, and I paid him and ran away back to my car.

I don't tend to go out often enough alone and those close to me have worried that I might be agrophobic. I assure you readers... I am far from it, I am simply dangerous and a target for every loon in a five mile radius.

Thom has a theory that I am such a nice, open, friendly person that people wrongly think they have made a 'special' connection with me and that this causes them to act in an over-familiar manner. I think he's too kind and that I have the words 'loon magnet' written somewhere only they can see.

In addition, when I do go out I spend ABSURD amounts of money on things I don't need.

This money running like water through my fingers experience applies also to SL. I found a shop that probably everybody else knows about already that sells nice shiny shoes. Oooooh. It's even on a sim called Heels. How cool is that?

Anyway it's link time - this is the SURL for the shop - it's called N-Core.

and look... look at the shiny things

Things at pocket rocket music super haus AAi <))) have been a little quiet. Most club owners and managers accept that warmer weather and major events (like the world cup) have an effect on attendance.

It's just a case of going with the flow, trying to keep things both familiar and yet fresh so that regulars don't become fed up and also, in the case of AAi, doing what we're really good at and making newcomers welcome.

AAi was built small on purpose. It was never meant to be a 24/7 high traffic venue. It's warm, intimate and familiar - a home from home - and I was delighted to be shown a fabulous blog post by a recent newcomer to AAi, Pixie Arcana. You can visit her blog entry about AAi here. I have to say, it really made me smile.

Acceptance and belonging are the keystones of AAi and I am happy to continue to work alongside other clubs in the indie arena, not competing for traffic, but in trying to be inclusive and a bit unusual at the same time :)

In other news... I have had a pc virus, issues, problems and things to whinge about, but do I let it get me down? Not for bloody long I don't :)))

Stay happy people, because it's the only thing that's worth anything. Slurpy Kisses.

Cats, Nups and Noobs

2010-06-30T12:55:00.015+01:00

Well Hello Darlinks!

I've had a simply super week, with the exception of yesterday which was self-grumpicising.

Last Friday, RL Thom went on a fishing competition which lasted until Sunday morning and this left me all alone in SL. Bwahahhahaha.

That night I went onto SL wondering what to do and saw a notice from the Pig and Whistle that Thanatos and Shelley were doing a Burlesque themed evening, so I bunged on my hat and sussies and sauntered on over.

Babs, Ai, Than, Shelley, Cosmic and a lovely selection of ladies were there to a wide variety of tunes from Than. Cos asked me to dance and as he was a cat, I was quite relieved he didn't mean smoochy dancing (as cats have spiky tongues).

After this, Cos asked if I fancied a fight, or indeed a shooting match (This qualifies as foreplay in the rural Arse of England) and we went off target shooting at a little place he found.

I whooped his hairy cat ass, I called him a pussy as I beat him on accuracy and amount over and over again. However, it was a right laugh and he made sure I had a good time. The next day he claimed he was very drunk and gave that as an explanation as to why he'd been beaten by a gurl. Rematch! is what I say.

On Saturday I'd been invited to Das and Spider's wedding at 6pm UK time and in the day I went out shopping for a suitable gift for them - I found a rather nice landscape in three parts, it was kind of modern but very attractive - and a new outfit, of course!

As their many friends filled the sim, I took my seat and waited for the arrival of the Bride. Das stood at the front fidgeting and looking nervous, but very smart indeed.

Spider arrived in a stunning white lace dress, fashionably late of course and joined Das at the front for their vows.

The promises they made to each other were very touching and there were a few hankies flying about. After the wedding itself, we were all asked to walk up to the purpose built dance floor area and after we'd watched the first dance, everyone coupled up to dance with each other. The one down side of going to a wedding alone is that there is nobody to dance with, but luckily Perl Hesse was also there and alone, so we made like a couple of old spinsters boogying away.

Sunday, Thom came back from fishing having been bitten to death by mozzies and gotten sunstroke, so he wasn't able to do his set that night. Overnight and the next day his right foot became so swollen I started to call him Bilbo Baggins.

These are a photo of Thom's actual feet, aren't they lovely?

... and he wants me to suck his toes - I think not.

Monday I did a truly simperingly awful set - Pop Princesses - I fear the irony was lost on many people, as was the blinding pink of my outfit, but hey - it was still great fun. I shall be returning to form next week with a mixed set, although I can't swear I won't stick in some kind of vileness to catch everyone out ;)

Afterwards, me and Thom went home and settled down on our sunbeds for our chilltime and got on voice.

Soon afterwards, a noob tottered into sight, coming to a standstill at the foot of my sunbed

(By the way, you can click on all these photos to see a much larger version)

[15:15] FilipeSilva Houley: hiii
[15:15] Mericat Ireland: hi filipe
[15:16] FilipeSilva Houley: found this place
[15:16] FilipeSilva Houley: is your house?
[15:16] Mericat Ireland: yes it is
[15:16] Mericat Ireland: new to sl?
[15:16] FilipeSilva Houley: yes
[15:16] Mericat Ireland: how are you liking it?
[15:16] FilipeSilva Houley: sl is good
[15:16] FilipeSilva Houley: but i dont have a girfriend
[15:16] Mericat Ireland: haha
[15:16] Thomas Thaler: lol
[15:17] Mericat Ireland: sorry for laughing
[15:17] FilipeSilva Houley: you have?
[15:17] Mericat Ireland: yes, thom is right here
[15:17] FilipeSilva Houley: ok
[15:18] Mericat Ireland: thom say hi
[15:18] Thomas Thaler: hi filipe

Filipe then took a seat first on Thom's sunbed and then decided he didn't like it there and settled at the foot of mine

Now, everyone who knows me will know I'm a little soft on noobs, I just can't help thinking how cute they are and yeah I know, most of them are middle aged men looking for a bunk up, but hey, gotta give them the benefit of the doubt, haven't I?

[15:18] FilipeSilva Houley: hi
[15:18] FilipeSilva Houley: i like Mericat
[15:18] FilipeSilva Houley: is hot
[15:19] Thomas Thaler: yeah she is filipe but taken i'm afraid
[15:19] Thomas Thaler: where else have you been filipe ?
[15:19] FilipeSilva Houley: mericat is your girfriend?
[15:20] Thomas Thaler: yes filipe
[15:20] FilipeSilva Houley: excuse
[15:21] FilipeSilva Houley: want to do one scene the three
[15:21] FilipeSilva Houley: apology
[15:21] Thomas Thaler: ok filipe .. are you asking for a threesome ?
[15:21] Thomas Thaler: do you have a cock yet ?
[15:22] FilipeSilva Houley: fuck you
[15:22] FilipeSilva Houley: im fuck you girfriend
[15:22] FilipeSilva Houley: and she likes me
[15:22] Avatar frozen.

At this point I am shocked into silence and Thom is laughing like a drain in my ear. He said 'leave it to me'. However, I couldn't resist finding a noob cock I keep in my invent and placing it in it's rightful place on Filipe's body (yes, his head of course)

[15:22] Thomas Thaler: even though you are dickless ?
[15:23] Thomas Thaler: and an ugly twat ?
[15:23] FilipeSilva Houley: you is ugly
[15:23] FilipeSilva Houley: she likes me
[15:23] Thomas Thaler: i'm not the one with a dick on his head
[15:23] Thomas Thaler: take a look
[15:23] FilipeSilva Houley: fuck you

At this point Filipe got up and climbed onto Thom's sunbed, like he'd like a fight, or indeed a snog. I froze him again - cus I am norty that way.

[15:23] Avatar frozen.
[15:25] Thomas Thaler: do you like men filipe ?
[15:25] Thomas Thaler: cus you seem to like me
[15:25] FilipeSilva Houley: you like mem
[15:25] Thomas Thaler: mem ?
[15:25] FilipeSilva Houley: i like your girlfriend

And with that, he ran off into the sunset, over the hills and far away. Hopefully never to be seen again. I have to admit though, I was feeling the chemistry between us :D

Midsummer Madness

2010-06-24T14:09:00.012+01:00

Ahoy Shipmates! I'm a day late with this entry because yesterday I was dead. Well, parts of me were dead and my brain and fingers were two of those parts.

Last Thursday, I absolutely had to do something with my pent up sexual frustration, so I suggested to Graz and Cisa that we go and shoot zombies. We found after a short while of shooting with 'normal' guns that the super duper banana gun was a far better option as not only did it work just as well, it launched them bodily across the sim. /me says 'Excellent' in her Bill and Ted voice.

We had a rest in the bus stop after and I couldn't help noticing that Cisa and I had huge guns, while Graz only had a modest one. He assures me that size is not everything, but then again... he would wouldn't he?

The chat went along these lines;

[7:27] Mericat Ireland: i noticed the other night that this actor had big hands
[7:27] Graz Firecaster: peter cushing?
[7:27] Mericat Ireland: bit scary they were
[7:27] Mericat Ireland: no
[7:27] Mericat Ireland: umm
[7:27] Cisa Batista: who?
[7:27] Mericat Ireland: he was in a good film, something fish
[7:27] Cisa Batista: bigfish?
[7:27] Graz Firecaster: kevin cline?
[7:27] Mericat Ireland: no
[7:27] Graz Firecaster: fish called wanda
[7:27] Mericat Ireland: and in face off
[7:27] Graz Firecaster: fish face>
[7:27] Mericat Ireland: with that other actor that was in grease
[7:28] Graz Firecaster: olivia newtron bomb?
[7:28] Mericat Ireland: oh no it wasn't that film
[7:28] Cisa Batista: O.o
[7:28] Mericat Ireland: gah
[7:28] Mericat Ireland: ok who is the guy who was in trainspotting?
[7:28] Cisa Batista: I know I know
[7:28] Cisa Batista: aaaahhh
[7:28] Cisa Batista: his name
[7:28] Mericat Ireland: scottish fella
[7:28] Cisa Batista: he was in Bigfish :)
[7:28] Graz Firecaster: they are all jocks
[7:28] Cisa Batista: even being kinda blonde the damn guy is cute
[7:28] Mericat Ireland: the main one graz
[7:29] Graz Firecaster: i know
[7:29] Graz Firecaster: er
[7:29] Mericat Ireland: what's his name?
[7:29] Mericat Ireland: lol
[7:29] Graz Firecaster: star wars
[7:29] Mericat Ireland: ok google is my friend
[7:29] Mericat Ireland: ewan macgregor!
[7:29] Graz Firecaster: thats him
[7:29] Mericat Ireland: well not him, the guy with big hands was in a film with him
[7:29] Graz Firecaster: oh god
[7:29] Graz Firecaster: leeam neeson
[7:29] Graz Firecaster: liam
[7:29] Mericat Ireland: no he has a big penis
[7:29] Graz Firecaster: does he?
[7:30] Mericat Ireland: yes
[7:30] Graz Firecaster: how you know?
[7:30] Cisa Batista: O.o
[7:30] Mericat Ireland: hugh jackman!
[7:30] Graz Firecaster: huge what?
[7:30] Mericat Ireland: hugh jackman is the guy with big hands

Between us we have enough brain juice to run one very small person, it's amazing we manage to get by at all I think.

That night, I had my shower and knocked myself into some kinda shape and decided it was time for a new profile picture. When I smile I look goofy, so please excuse the deliberately posed pouty business - I mean, it's worth doing 'cus the people who don't already know me might think I am really like that eh? So, sssh.

Yes I have clothes on, you just can't see them in the photo. I had a very cute white broderie anglaise strapless dress and leggings on. The dress is top of a list of 'DOH' buys I have made in my life because it doesn't stay up properly, strapless bras do this shocking and without warning movement that kinda ooofs my boobs out, so I daren't wear them and so... basically... I can never wear the dress outside the house for fear of accidents. Anyway, all that is academic as you can't even see it, but I wanted you to know - not a total ho!

Friday night I was on cam with Thom when suddenly he became transfixed by something off to his right and made a face like a terrified schoolgirl. After he managed to gird himself into action and kill it, he showed it to me and took a photo...

It's an ichnumon wasp and apparently doesn't sting, but OMG it looks evil. I think he was dead brave, to be fair. If that thing decided it was coming into my house, I'd just move out, it could have it.

The weekend itself was fairly quiet for me, not such a bad thing and I decided it was finally time to sort the clean washing mountain that had built up in my conservatory on the dining table.

Monday dawned bright and fair with only a minor tussle with my dyson as a blot on the horizon (I believed it to be knackered, so I wrestled it to the ground, investigated, took bits off, emptied it, put it all back together and still it didn't work. I sussed eventually that I had it switched to nozzle, not major suck and that was probly why it wasn't picking up).

I couldn't do my set on Monday night at the Pig and Whistle cus Thom and I were spending a few days together, so I had asked Graz Firecaster to do it. He took this request to heart - feeling he had to not just do 'a' set, but 'my' set. He was Mericaster.

Despite the fact I should have been offline, I could not resist having a look, so I logged Meri on and found this!

I fear that this will have done nothing to quiet the accusations of campness that seem to follow him. But I'm still most grateful :)

Today is Jellie Arrowmint's first rezzday, and so last night Graz's regular set at AAi was a rezzday party for Jells. The place was rammed with friends and well wishers and it was heartening to see. Graz did a fab invite for her...

So... with lotsa love from me personally... Happy Rezzday Jells and here's to many more.

And to the rest of you - mwah!

Rainbows and birds and kittens

2010-06-16T20:12:00.009+01:00

Late on last Thursday night I was having problems in SL... I know, you're thinking so what's new? But honestly? I've not had many SL problems for a long time now. I'd had some problems with currency and when it came time for Thom and I to go home and sit in our deck chairs (not code for kinky sex by the way) I decided to relog.

Great BIG Mistake

Yep I ended up in the bin, with about 3000 other avas. I knew how important this chill out time was to Thom so I battled for about 3 hours ('bout 10 minutes in real time) to teleport home and finally managed it... without hair, an ao, any prims etc.

Thom rewarded me for my persistence by laughing 'til he weed his pants saying things like

'Oh I think you have two broken legs look! They're bent the wrong way'

and

'You look really horrible, doesn't look like you at all'

and

'OMG you're bald and your face is different'

So, perhaps unsurprisingly I huffed off and said he could talk to me in Skype.

I went to bed that night hoping the next morning would bring me a really super lie in, because I needed sleep and that the fairies would sprinkle lucky dust on my pillow for once.

Friday morning, 8am... I am awoken by a man with a big tool

Yeah, definitely not what I had in mind either. I leapt out of bed, whipped open my curtains thinking what is that BLOOMIN noise? And saw that! Well, because I am sad I immediately thought about how I would blog that and have a jolly good moan and so I took a photo on my mobile (blurry as you can see cus I could barely open my eyes yet). When I did focus after taking the photo, I realised he was looking back, and then I realised I was naked. Not a sexy 'oops' kind of naked either, more of a 'Jesus that woman is having a bad hair day and showing me her bingo wings' kind of naked. :(

I crept off downstairs.

The rest of the day was okay, taking into account the real start of the World Cup and the weekend all in one day. I decided to just kind of ignore it and it would go away. Seems to be working so far.

Saturday was kinda nice... This is where the rainbow comes in!

Sunday, Thom and I resolved to get our asses out of bed in the morning and go to Ice Halderman's set at AAi. Despite Ice and Leelii being two of my fave people in SL, I have not blogged about them so far. Perhaps this is because they are well behaved, no trouble, no drama and therefore, no rampant hot gossip. But why would I reward bad behaviour? Hmm?

Ice and Leelii live together in upside down cake land, so their evening is my morning and vice versa. They met on SL and despite Ice's bad jokes, moved in together RL. I have seen photos of Leelii with whiskers and ears (RL Neko it seems - it really does take all sorts) and also fishing, so I'm pretty sure she's real. The only photo anyone has seen of Ice is one taken at his high school prom, but lets face it, if you were going to make up a personality, you'd keep the really bad jokes to a minimum ;)

I love Mondays, I get the house to myself, I can do all the bits and bobs I didn't get to do over the weekend and I get to organise my set for later. It was a full five minutes before the poop monster visited me and shat on my head. I had opened the living room window nice and wide and was sat at my computer contemplating life and SL etc. when my cat jumps up and walks in the window about a foot in front of my face with the biggest hugest most fat pigeon ever in it's mouth. I screamed and waved my arms at him to get out.

I then slammed the window shut, and the curtains and waited 'til I stopped shaking before looking again. I felt minorly guilty about the bird, but I was fairly sure it was dead as it didn't seem to have a head.

When I did next look after half an hour, the cat had dropped him at perfect viewing distance of my window and ripped out it's innards. I shut the curtains again after narrowly avoiding puking on my window sill and they stayed shut until this afternoon when I realised that apart from a foot and a lot of feathers, the bird had gone. Thank God!

I know it's the nature of cats to kill, but it breaks my heart to see 'Mommy's special soldier' acting that way. He's so cute. The only guy that has killed more birds than him is Ted Bundy and I'm now wondering if his mother felt the same way :(((( (I'm sorry that was grossly insensitive).

I'm still (Wednesday night) not talking to MSS, and he's keeping a low profile.

Monday night was my set at the Pig and Whistle, as usual, and I had a real fun time. I played some absolute shite and some quite good stuff and some stuff that shouldn't be good but is - you know the mix.

My evening was topped off by Lupo's compliment 'You're tough and sweet'. Wow, now that is damn smooth :) What girl doesn't want to be told that? I pointed it out to Thom and he said something along the lines of 'Yeah? Well you are'. I have to say, I liked that just as much.. am I a sap? Oh god yes.

Last night (Tuesday) me and Thom decided to go out and do something different in SL. He had suggested it earlier in the day and I was imagining whirling around a romantic dancefloor in a full length dress while he whispered sweet nothings in my ear (Yeah I know)

Anyway, turns out he had something completely different in mind! Get a load of this

Yep that's me being attacked my a mutant post apocalyptic crab monster (and the huge bit you can see is it's mouth!)

and this is Thom shooting zombies with the AK47 I happened to have in my handbag. I know, if I were a better photographer there would be a zombie in the photo. It was a right good laugh and we're going to organise some kind of team to go over the and clear out the godamn mo fo'ing erm thingies. If I were a better blogger I'd have put in an SURL, but I promise I'll get one and make an edit.

So, that was the week that was...

Territorial? Me? Too right!

2010-06-09T19:18:00.010+01:00

A long long time ago, rl Thom accused rl me of being territorial in the kitchen. I thought this was a pretty low jibe and denied it vigorously (while beating him with a pan).

This week has left me wondering about my territorial nature... I got home from my favourite trip out of the week (see previous blogs) to find a car parked right across my driveway. Right at the same time I saw an estate agent and a couple come out of the house next door and I thought 'Ah Ok, it's them and they will apologise and move the car', so I did a nifty move over my other neighbours driveway and down onto my drive and parked and got out of the car and looked at the people - AND THEY JUST IGNORED ME AND WALKED OFF DOWN THE STREET.

Well! This sent me into a full Meldrew mode. I pulled the blind down in the kitchen so I could see them and they couldn't see me and watched. Then I got frustrated and wrote a note, it went like this...

Hi, please do not park across my driveway, thanks and a smiley. And I put it under the windscreen wiper and went back to watch. Nothing happened. Then my Mum rang so I told her about it while watching and then took a photo with my mobile while she empathised.

Then they came back, got into the car ignoring the note and drove off. GAaaaaaaaaaaaah.

Utter utter bar stewards. Anyway he was dark haired, medium height and build and otherwise non descript and she was blonde with dark roots, about 6 months pregnant and similarly unremarkable, they were in their early 30s and if you see anyone fitting that description in that car, shout at them for me please.

Italian hand gestures are also acceptable :)

In SL in the meantime, I have no car so have not had this problem.

On Wednesday last week I went to Graz Firecaster's set at AAi (1-3pm slt)

He played his stuff, we took the pee outta him. You know, same old but good. Anyway, part way through Vali Rau (see picture below) who plays Punk and assorted good stuff on Thursdays at AAi 1-3pm slt arrived and began to be norty. He passed out various gestures and sillyness and then he sat right in front of the tipping pic making off with as much as 13 lindens (at least half of Graz's takings that night lol)

So he's umm... on the WANTED list. If you see him, for god's sake tip him to stop him taking others :)

We welcomed another new DJ to AAi last week (Weds 3-5pm slt) Rychatt Zepp plays indie and alt for us now and he's such a nice geezer. Drop in and say HAI.

I went to Cos's set at the Pig and Whistle last Thursday night (1-3pm slt), down on the beach for a change.

Something occurred to me while I was camming round; You know how some people grow to look like their pets? Well it seems some of them have their pets put on tshirts too :D

Final SL observation for the week was this...

When did our Jells get all growed up? Where has old Jellie or Jellie baby gone? I can almost see Thom weeping over her baby hoodies :/

Final RL observation this week goes to a not very often mentioned character - the person I am separated from but live with part time as friends at the moment (complicated life alert) - we will call him erm... Jim.

We got a new loaf of bread, it was uncut. He went to slice some and was gone some time. When he came back through it went like this...

ME: 'Got some flour on you there Jim!'
JIM: 'Where?'
ME: 'There look, on your leg' (Jim looks at wrong leg)
ME: 'Other leg' (Jim looks at cat)
JIM: 'I don't see any'
ME: 'Grrr'

So I got my camera, took a photo and said 'LOOK! THERE' 'Oh, yeah' said Jim.

I put this not because Jim is in any way stupid, he's a very clever man, but because he is unconcerned about flour, legs, looking for them and blogs but is pure comedy sometimes :)

Anyway... to those of you who make mine and other lives better I send a big kiss and to those others, who try to pee me off and stop me smiling ... I send you this :D

AAi - from destination guide

2010-06-05T19:14:00.001+01:00

AAi

Awww, check this out. This is the review that the Lindens did of AAi a few months ago, in fact... bit more than a few months ago. Shows the old club and everything :)

Since you been gone...

2010-06-02T13:47:00.012+01:00

Anyone who can knows me and can read will have sussed that Thom is away on a 'fishing holiday' in France this week. He left on Saturday at some ungodly hour and is due back this coming Saturday.

News from mon petit pois includes... He has caught no (that is zero, 0, nada) fish but! in a surprise twist, it's not only him. Nobody at the lake has caught any fish at all since Saturday and there are ten men in silly hats there. Being a bit like Poirot in that I have a well cared for moustache, I surmise that perhaps there are no fish but that it would be insensitive and demotivating of me to point that out to him. So sssh.

Yesterday Thom ate his own bodyweight in crap and watched two man films. Man films contain the words epic and fast paced in the description and send me to sleep. They obviously drive Thom to eat like a pre-menstrual woman with genuine emotional issues.

Last night while under the influence of many cans of beer he 'fessed up to having eaten french bread and ham with mustard, kettle chips, a snickers, 4 twixes (that's 8 ixes), steak with mushrooms, onions and new potatoes, a bag of french crisps and 1 and a half bags of Haribo. Peeeeeeeg.

I had to actually ask him to pause eating while we spoke. *Shakes head*

Anyway it seems wrong that while Thom is away my blog ends up being about him, so my week has been like THIS;

I went shopping for hair with Flossy and then he tp'd me to Sira's place while he adjusted it on his pose stand. I sat on Sira's huge bunny (not a euphemism) and IM'd her. She said 'Oh I was just about to come home, but this might not be a good time' I said 'Er why?' and she said 'Cus I'm naked'. Well! There's not much I like more than naked, so I encouraged her to come home immediately and she did. She spent a while trampolining in the yard and I noticed something about her that had previously escaped me...

You might have to click to make the picture bigger to make it out clearly...

... got it yet?

Yes :) She seems to have bits of string tied around her wrists and ankles! Isn't it strange what you don't notice about people sometimes? (Sira did give me permission to use the photo)

So I went away on Saturday too, to spend some quality girl time with my Mum who is almost 70. I love my Mum's house, it's full of stuff, some gorgeous stuff and some boxes of papers that we keep meaning to sort through and lots and lots of food. Nobody has ever gone hungry as a guest in that house.

She had grown and picked some bluebells which were developing huge seed pods of which she was so proud I had to take a picture.

I'm what they call an 'instinctive hairdresser' which in actual terms means I've never had a day's training in my life and just do what I think is right and it seems to work out okay. I cut and coloured my Mum's hair and she seemed very pleased with the result.

So pleased in fact, that I was able to persuade her to go out with me into town to have a few drinks. Now I know that you have this idea in your mind that my Mum is a sweet little oldish lady who grows bluebells, feeds people and uses home hair colorants, but more than any of that... she is my Mother. Anyone who knows me might have an idea what this entails.

We got out and soon she was bored with the pub we went to because it wasn't lively enough and she tentatively suggested a bit of a pub crawl.

First pub we went in used to be a good solid kinda pub but, as the lady behind the bar said, people don't seem to know it's reopened and it was empty. We didn't like to tell her that the reason it was empty was because it was really disgustingly dirty. I took a picture of the sink to show you how torn I was about whether to wash my hands or not. Eugh.

So... course we had to move on. We went to the youngest most lively bar in the area and people watched, assessing and not quite bitching about outfits and bad decisions and agreeing that most guys were minging.

We had a few in here and umm... I made her have a Jager shot. Yeah I know, but she was so up for it!

When we went out for a ciggie, she started chatting to the Doorman and soon knew quite a lot about him and he had shown her photos of his little girl on his iPhone. I dragged her away to yet another 'hotspot'

In here we had lager and sambuca. And another Doorman. This one she absolutely adored and wanted to adopt and told him so. Told him what a cute little face he had and such lovely eyes. Honestly? I was half proud and half embarrassed and when she said it was probably time to go home and order in cheap and greasy burger and chips, I thought she was probably right.

She's quite a girl.

I crawled home on Bank Holiday Monday, head pounding, feeling tired. (She stood sprightly, awake and zingy on her front step - waving and blowing me kisses)

Monday night's set at the Pig was a good one, as always! Once Filthy Adored knew what day it was, he and Dirty came over and we also had the Portuguese contingent in the house.

Some say Cisa is going off the boil and losing her looks, but I think she just needs umm...

Well I'm not sure what she needs, but I demoted her to Wife No.2 and installed Jinxy as Wife No.1.

Such a pwetty punky pie!!!!

Last night on SL was a bit of a dead loss in terms of clubs and DJ's, so I'm looking forward to tonight and the return of the prodigal manager of AAi, Graz Firecaster who has been on holiday with his family. His set is on 1-3pm slt (every Wednesday) and I would encourage you to attend. In fact I will :)

THEN AND NOW...

2010-05-26T16:18:00.000+01:00

A long time ago, back in the 80s, when I was a little girl, when boys had mullets and waaay before I had any idea why I liked guys, never mind any idea what to do with one, I found myself *ahem* drawn to certain people.

And nowadays, I'm still drawn to certain people of course. In fact, me and Thom have a 'Five allowed' system. The idea is that there is a pre-stated list of famous people that - should the opportunity arise - you are allowed a night with, no questions asked, without it affecting your relationship.

So, in the spirit of Then and Now, I've done my list from then (when all I wanted was an autograph) and now (when I wouldn't mind carrying their prim babies)

Leroy from Fame (faints) I mean, he walked in for that audition, strutted his funky stuff, did THAT dance move and I wondered why there were no boys like that in my dance class.

Don't you ever, don't you ever, stop being dandy, showing me you're handsome. Sadly, we all know that Adam did stop being dandy and showing us he was handsome, but time can do that to a guy. I remember standing stock still in front of the TV thinking the junior version of Prhroagr!

Oh Nik, Nik! do you need help to figure out the riddle? Help backcombing your hair? I quite literally outgrew Nik when I found out he was only 5'4" tall.

Morten... oh the cheekbones. I could have used them to slice cheese. At 14 years older than me, my biggest fear was that the hussy from the 'Take on Me' video would snap him up before I grew up enough for him to know he was meant for me.

At 13 years older than me, I didn't think that John Taylor would be around for me when I was old enough either... so I gave up on him only to find that he married Amanda de Cadenet in 1991, who was one year older than me at that stage.

Meh, by that time I'd moved onto real men anyway :D

So that was then...

... This is now

It's a cliche - Bradders - but in my defence, I never fancied him one little bit before I saw Fight Club and since then, in my opinion, every step he has taken away from the baby faced Brad of Thelma and Louise has been an improvement. Brad in his 40s - Rawrrrr

Eric Bana - he's a good actor, a fabulous actor really. A truly nice guy, he's aussie aussie aussie oi oi oi. And um *whispers* he's hot.

Jim Caviezel - I have got to admit, I'd never heard of the guy until he starred in the remake of the Prisoner on TV. The show was supposed to be good, however I wouldn't know. Jim spent far too much time wandering around half naked or in a open white linen shirt for me to take any of the storyline on board.

Liam - I know, he's getting old now. But he's lovely, a real sweetie. He's got a lovely voice, face, eyes and I bet he always has a kind word for everyone. Now I've just described him like your favourite uncle, let me jolt you from that warm soft place by saying that I also can't completely ignore the rumours (yeah you know what rumours).

Jonathan Rhys-Meyers - oh the eyes! Nothing more needs to be said I think :)

***

Never let it be said that I'm not shallow :)))

One last tiny wafer thin mint

2010-05-26T10:44:00.001+01:00

Yes, I forgot something yesterday... leading on from the JC experience, Thom suggested I take a folder along next time to cover myself with if it happens again and I thought that a well placed arrow on the back of the folder might help too :)

So I did a truly crap cartoon :)

Yay for photoshop

Yoooooooooooooo! Your sex is on fire...

2010-05-25T21:00:00.001+01:00

Sorry I just happen to have this on my headphones, thus the blog entry title this week.

I'm being stalked is the first item on the agenda this week. A neighbour of mine comes and sits on my front lawn every day and stares through my kitchen window. He's been doing this for about 2 years and nobody else seems to care.

This picture of Billy my next door neighbour was taken last Tuesday afternoon and...

... this photo of Billy was taken on Wednesday afternoon. He never blinks or moves. He's proper freaky. Anyway on Thursday afternoon I went through to take another photo for my blog and something else caught my eye

Yippee Ki Yay Mother Feline Fooker! Yep they're moving :D

I've not managed to get a photo of the poncey grey cat who thinks he's James Bond yet (due to the need to fight him every time I see him) but I will do. I think I won the last round, he hasn't been around for a day or so.

Some say I should get a job and stop being the rallying point for the neighbourhood's cats, but I say if not me then who? Hmm?

Last night at the Pig and Whistle was absolutely outstanding. About 25 avas there and we had such a laugh. I kept it simple and did indie anthems and took a nice photo of all of the beautiful people.

So if you're not in the photo, please be assured that I'm not saying you're not beautiful, just that you were either late (tuts) or not there and neither has a valid excuse. Make sure you're on call for it 1pm next Monday purlease.

Which brings us to today. Last week they told me they were changing my signing on day and week to today, so I dutifully trotted along with my paper indicating all that I do to search for a relevant role and sat reading the Times Education Supplement while I waited to be called. (I wonder why they don't provide appropriate materials, I mean something with more pictures, or indeed, more jobs, but I digress).

A young chap called my name and I went over and I won't give you the whole conversation, because frankly, you wouldn't believe me if I told you, but I swear, what is below is gospel

YOUNG MAN: Would this job here have been working actually for the agency?
MERI: No, they were handling the vacancy for an employer
YOUNG MAN: Can you try applying for more jobs with a company itself not an agency?
MERI: (Looks confused and notices Young Man staring at her rack for longer than is polite) Erm
YOUNG MAN: (Glances up) Er I mean, even if it's only a little company
MERI: (Looks more confused) Well, the kind of job I'm after tends to be advertised through an agency
YOUNG MAN: (Stares blatantly at the twins again) My eyes hurt
MERI: Umm, is it hay fever?
YOUNG MAN: No, it's staring at the screen all day, I hate it (manages eye contact)
MERI: Oh dear, you should focus on something far away every five minutes, it might help
YOUNG MAN: This chair is rubbish too, my back hurts, it's the budget cuts (resumes staring at boobs)
YOUNG MAN: You must think I'm being aggressive
MERI: (choosing to ignore the last comment) Yes the budget cuts are worrying
YOUNG MAN: Next thing you know we'll all be on tree stumps or something... Tree stumps in a wood, surrounded by Goblins
MERI: Mmm
YOUNG MAN: Well (addresses this back to boobs) thank you very much
MERI: Yes, erm, thanks. Bye.
YOUNG MAN: Bye Bye!

Why does this kind of thing happen to me? Why? I felt more dingy than usual on the way out.

I'd like a chorus of 'Poor Meri' please

Slopes off to put polo neck on during heat wave

Gettin jiggy with the bloggy

2010-05-20T11:35:00.000+01:00

Well, How YOU doin'?

I'm feeling great today. The sun is out, the birds are singing, got signed in 10 minutes and nobody nicked my phone or beat me up on the way out of the Job Centre. Ahh, it's a beautiful world.

The last week has been great too :)

Last Thursday at Vali Rau's awesome punk set (Thursdays 1pm - 3pm slt AAi), Bootits died! (Yeah I know that's sposed to be a sad thing, but at least I got a snapshot)

Boo does tend to keep things 'fresh' by turning up at the club either as a guy or a girl, or a fawn (pictured above) by dying, fainting, falling over, changing from one form to another partway through the set. He's the poster boy for Portugal and I think we're all a little bit in love with his virtual insanity (no reference or nod to Jamiroquai here)

Then August arrived for her early morning work out and dance session, the conversation turned to chocolate (why does that always happen? Hmm? Sex or chocolate... chocolate or sex... sex with chocolate! /me wanders off to find a suitable penis shaped mould and a large bar of cadburys)

So she turned into "M&M Aug", not to be confused with Eminem, poor Detroit trailer trash, embittered by his upbringing and a bit Oedipal about his mother. (Wow that could apply to so many people - if you read that and think, OMG she means me! Get help, seriously)

There's a new gesture doing the rounds. I am not much into gestures - aside from the classic and unstoppable yay, hoo and tune ones. This one deserves special mention cus it kinda goes Woooooo! and stretches your ava. So uber geek it's cool. I have two photos of people who Woooo'd and the wind changed though, so don't try this at home kids.

The usually stunning Babette Bellios (our Babs to her friends) getting physical

and

Thomas "Ten Inches" Thaler - as he likes to be called (he's referring to the amount of Jamesons he likes in a glass with his ginger I think) As you can see, I couldn't even fit all of him on this picture he was soooo long.

Last night (Wednesday) on sl, Graz Firecaster's Jukebox Fury exploded into the club and brought with it about 25 avas, I mean... wtf? It was a fab night, it was rammed. And all this before Cosmic arrived and decided to boogie in the middle of the dancefloor

I'm still trying to figure out what is different about Cos... I think maybe he has done something with his hair? Answers on a postcard please.

Josielo and I were talking last night about organising a mass 'Arf' conga in the club, this basically would be everyone pretending to bonk each others ass as we dance around the club in line. I suggested that we girls have to co-ordinate our 'horny week' to do this to best effect. So can we please synchronise our cycles.... now! Thanks :)

Monday this week was special, not just in the way that Mondays are always special (I get to play at the fabulous Pig and Whistle, owned by Ai Nieuport and Babette Bellios) But also because it was my Dad's 70th birthday.

We had a little party for him in the daytime, and I appreciate that this sounds like he's a fragile little old man but believe me, he'd rather have been partying hard and singing all night. I hope that he had a good time anyway, and I thought I'd post a little picture of him and me that was taken, showing what a smasher he is :)

(I look a bit simple cus the sun was in my eyes and cus erm... well that's just how I look)

Well... I think that's about all for now. I'm on a promise for this afternoon and have to go and shine up Thom's gimp suit.

:) grosses bisses

RL? Does not compute

2010-05-11T15:42:00.000+01:00

I did say last week that my blog might not have the same kinda SL quality to it this entry and I was roit.

First off, I decided to take a 'facebook angle' photograph of myself. For those of you not in the know, it is designed to do various supposedly flattering things... it removes any kind of double chin effect of the kind occasionally suffered by many of us and, it is supposed to be able to give a full face shot while also showing your cleavage.

For the purposes of my experiment I wore a reasonably high necked tshirt, so my apologies - for extra booby shots please see Thom's profile ;)

So after a few days contemplating it, I've decided that I look absolutely fooking ridiculous and will go back to random skype shots for profiles etc. I hate Faceboook anyway, tis pants.

I got a phone call Tuesday night asking me to go for an interview for a really great job, but the next morning and 70 miles away. I went 'umm yes please' and then set about maniacally trying to prepare and get ready and I ended up in a public toilet around the corner from the interview place, on the phone with Thom - panicking only slightly - feeling odd cus nobody had seen me and I didn't know if I looked ok. So (god I love technology) I took a photo and sent it to him.

So, now for the excuses folks - I had had almost NO sleep, so I look tired. I did not choose the precise colours of the tiling behind me and yes it is ugly. But I looked alright I think, respectable anyway, which was the aim. And yeah, they offered me the job and no, I couldn't accept it, and no, I'm not going into why 'cus it's a long, somewhat convoluted story and I'm still a teeny tiny bit peed off about it.

Grr... hits the job trail once more

Wednesday night was Graz Firecaster's Jukebox Fury set and a special one, cus it was a little celebration for our friend Josielo Ceriano's RL birthday. I took a couple of shots

Graz had done the background as a big birthday banner for her and it looks SUPER. I may hire Mr Firecaster to be my friend next birthday.

I managed to get this snap of Josie before she ate too much cake, drank too much fizzy pop and ran around squealing until she was sick on Jellie's shoes. Such a nice girl :)

At the weekend RL me and RL Thom went away to a hotel near Daventry. "Ooh" I hear you all cry "What is Daventry like?" And the answer is that I still don't know. It peed it down and we didn't go out. Well... I went out occasionally to have a ciggie, but that was about it.

The hotel was nice... best bit of the hotel was possibly the light in the wardrobe (it stopped Thom from getting scared when I made him sleep in there).

We went into the bar early afternoon on Saturday for (and I quote Thom directly here) "2 pints". However I wasn't totally surprised when he got up and asked if I wanted a third, then a fourth and so on. So we didn't go back and watch a film as we had planned, we carried on drinking and watching a wedding reception. It was Fab! (deliberately with a capital F). It didn't take me long before I was gagging to do 'Oops up side your head' on a slightly sticky dancefloor and so I began ingratiating myself with various guests in the hopes we could crash the function room later.

It was at around this level of drunkenness that I began to be fascinated by visual stimulae - the candles in coloured votives in reception, which they kindly let me nick one of for our table in the bar - and also the shadows on Thom's new jeans (Oh yes ladies, I promised a crotch shot and here it comes)

You know, before anyone starts feeling sorry for him, let me just say that I took five photographs of his crotch and this was the one he chose for my blog... he's such a tart. He only stopped me taking photos 'cus the flash going off and me laughing was drawing attention from other customers.

We decided to go back to our room (as it was dark and we were hungry) and the nice receptionist let us take a lantern and a votive thingy and several scented candles which she let me choose from her pot of them, on the promise that I would return them to her the next day (I am so ashamed to say that once I had my trolley case in hand, I didn't - hoping that the servicing of the room would do that for me)

Ordering tons of room service is a good idea, for sure, when very drunk and hungry and so that's what we did, along with a further 4 pints of beer which we didn't drink and then we settled down to watch a film, which we couldn't concentrate on and then we 管闲事一些和出发我們的岩石 (like I'm going to write what we did do in here, cripes you're so naive) and then we went to sleep, like nice, good normal people :)

Yeah, it was fun. My bruises (we always tussle a bit) are almost gone now and I have removed all the freebie toiletries from my bag.

:)

Tick Tick Boom!

2010-05-04T15:16:00.001+01:00

Where the hell does time go? It flies past with absolutely no consideration to important things like... blog updates, the relative elasticity of my skin or whether I have remembered to defrost any appropriate items for dinner. (Result is about one blog update a week; don't even go there when talking about my firmness and no dinner again - I'll have a P&J sanger).

So, this was the week that was...

I went out playing with Cisa, she was on a racetrack with her new scooter and said I could come along for the ride

We went so fast with my fat ass on the back that it was unable to even blow round the little sails on our safety helmets. After some considerable time (bout 4 mins, due to us both having very short attention spans) we moved on to another place where we raced - well I did anyway - and then went on the dodgems

She was a vicious dodgemer and I got a few bruises as she merrily careered round laughing her head off and trying to kill me (note to self: choose friends carefully)

***

Later the same day... birds still flying around my head as I recovered from concussion... I went over to AAi's Secret Garden to make some more changes. I've put in a small but functional pond up the hill, with waterfall AAANNND (don't pee your pants in excitement) a fully functional 7seas server and vendor. So you can fish there and catch actual fish and then they swim around your head and you can build things from the parts and all sorts. Wow, someone fetch me a mop ;)

Thom seemed to like it and I took the opportunity to take a photo of his ass

You're probably thinking, what is a pond and waterfall doing on top of a hill anyway? surely that is most an unlikely phenomenon in nature? Well yeah admittedly it is, but I thought wth, it's SL, we can do whatever we want.

I was over at Mason's shop place the other day (MK Designs, AV Match and 2nd Hub talking about land and I noticed a lovely swing which as soon as he logged off, I edited, prim raped and went and purchased from the seller. It's soooo cute, but hell I can't get it to face the right way. Luckily it offers a position whereby I can still look out over the lake.

Thom doesn't seem to mind and is kind enough to hang on to my ass nice and tight, to avoid me falling off. How sweet :)

Life otherwise is fine and dandy, it's going to be quite a RL intensive week, so I don't know how much I'll have to blog about SL next week, but if Thom doesn't behave himself when we go away this weekend, I should have plenty to spill anyway.

The Love Boat, Stylin' and Kinky Stuff

2010-04-24T01:50:00.000+01:00

Well oh my it's been quite a week. RL reared it's ugly head and made me spend some time in it.

I went to see my Personal Development Officer (they give you one of these when you've been out of work for a long while, as a consolation prize for being essentially a bit crap) and he asked me how I was feeling about my job search at the moment. I said 'Well honestly Dave (for that is his name) I'm feeling like there is something essentially wrong with me that nobody has bothered to tell me about' and he reassured me somewhat, which was nice. He is very nice and all that, not his fault I'm jobless and have spaghetti on my shirt is it?

Monday I did my set at the Pig, twas a good laugh as usual and (be still my heart) my hunny, my love, my Thomas had decided to get a new outfit to seduce me with. His
Roboaliensapiencockmonster (available from all good stockists) ava had us all on our knees (laughing) within minutes as he proudly demonstrated how he had a light up torch attachment that shot out of his pelvis at one click. It makes me so happy that he's keeping our dream alive :D

I went to the Mod night at AAi on Tuesday for a while, Kimberley Sixpence played the full set as Eden's pc has gone to heaven. While I watched her effortlessly breakdance her way through the set (which was excellent) I thought about how at some point I really must go out and buy some bloody mod dances for the dance machine. Linden and lindens willing, I'll go this week.

Right near our house there is a boat, you could charitably call it a love boat but in truth, it is a place that noobs go to shag other noobs. God knows how the landmark is getting around, but it seems that it being the property of our fab neighbour does not put them off. Well! I logged on the other day, and clumsily managed to double click on the boat as I rezzed and yep, landed right in there next to the bed. I quickly tp'd home (I had a nice dress on and didn't want any flying bodily fluids to soil it) and it seems I was too late. I was followed by the solitary noob who had been there waiting for his chance. He followed me home (only about 35 metres) and valiantly did battle with our security orb in order to convince me of his passion. I have to tell you, I was impressed with his tenacity, he'd get booted 80 feet and come back for more. Now that's my kinda guy :)

*Straightens glasses, clears throat, looks sternly at camera* In other news this week...

Reports of a brand new facelight designed to enhance even the dullest of skins has reached the eyes (and all other orifaces) of those in AAi <))) Creators warn that it should be used only in conjunction with factor 40 sunscreen and all friends should be asked to sign a disclaimer prior to prolonged exposure.

Fashion has reached new heights. Keeping a dog in your handbag is no longer de-rigeur (I'd say, it's so last week, but that's so last week now) Those in the know are saying you should keep a pussy on your head, according to fashionista Sira, pictured here with a petite charcoal feline accented with green eyes. Sira, 25 years old, 36-26-34 claims that she hopes the new fashion will bring 'world peace and an end to poverty' (Standard disclaimer: Quotes in blog may be fictional, Sira may just have stuck a cat on her head and indeed may not recommend this to other avas)

So yep, I think that's me all caught up for now, keep smiling :)

Gah Pff and Huff

2010-04-17T15:30:00.000+01:00

There is a rule in my house, the cook doesn't clean up the kitchen. And that seems fair enough to me. Speshly as I'm normally the one cooking. So this morning when I got up to find that the dirty dishes from the awesome jaw dropping carbonara I made yesterday were still there, I was far from impressed.

In addition, I walked through the (empty) house to find that the last person to leave it had left the back door wide open - with me asleep in bed - so I could have been murdered in my sleep or, (worse) a burglar could have crept in and found out what a skanky ho I am, still having yesterday's dishes in the kitchen.

With a steely eye and a somewhat sulky bottom lip, I decided to go into SL, land of no dirty dishes or being molested in your sleep and do a set at AAi <))).

T'was while I was sharing the seductive mysteries of music with other people that I realised how little I look at avas these days. When I first started, I used to cam people all the time, and I suppose I lost interest - we're all so fooking gorgeous you see, it gets boring.

So I took a few snapshots to share with you... people who come to the club. The thing that lifted my spirits today is that we all go into SL quite similar, fairly ugly, dull skin, horrible clothes and evil hair. We come out the other end an expression of our real selves. Either how we'd like to look, or how we'd like the freedom to look or in some cases, exactly how we do look in rl. Fascinating stuff.

So here goes...

The lovely and fabulously detailed Squiddly Tox

Punky Boy Vali Rau, an atypical punk with a very realistic face

Liela Core - une belle francais

Das Tungsten - his tattoos are a map to him I think, have a ganzer

I love self expression, Ava's are a form of art and sometimes I wish I was a bit braver, or wilder or erm... more arty :)

Club Life - Disk and other kinds of Jockeys

2010-04-16T16:12:00.001+01:00

Hurrah! Today I signed into my laptop to find AAi's Assistant Manager Jells had dealt with a sticky situation. A complete and utter knobber (who shall remain nameless of course) had been offering quite forcibly to lick parts of ladies that many men don't even know exist.

Top marks to him for effort but a big fat Zero for style. I'm sure our Jellie won't mind me quoting here a little of the private conversation that ensued...

[2:54] Jellie: Hun I'm getting IM's from people who are offended by your chat in local, please could you keep it to IM's?
[2:54] Complete Knob: nah
[2:55] Complete Knob: if you dont like it boot me
[2:55] Jellie: ok, will do (at this point she banned and ejected him)
[2:56] Complete Knob: daamn
[2:56] Complete Knob: you newed to get your c*nt licked (I asterisked that, not him)
[2:57] Jellie: not by assholes like you
[2:57] Jellie: muted

Hahahaha! She's little, she's cute, she says YAYYYYY, but she's Jells Bells and you should never forget it. I think he 'neweds' to go back to school :D

/me disengages bish mode

After this we had a real laugh, first at Jellie's set (sorry I missed my dedication) and then at Liela Core's set. Wow that chick plays the kind of music I love. I have to confess to making a few notes of ones to steal for my own sets.

Last night me and Thom didn't go on SL, we had a chat in skype and then he went back to watching a film he'd already been watching for an hour and had an estimated 2 hours left... 2012. I inadvertently mentioned that I'd read it was pants and indeed he says it was, absolutely rotten stinkin' pants. So guys n gals, don't bother.

The night before however, we revisited 'A Perfect World' - a film from about 15 years ago about a convict who takes a little boy hostage and their relationship. It's still amazing all these years later and we both cried like babies. Needless to say I shall be saying 'Hell Yeah' and 'Hell No' for some time yet.

In fact, Thom has requested that I work more on my Texan accent so that we can do 'the rude' in Texan. Hmm... I'll consider that particular kink in my own time.

For now, Yeeeeeehaw, from me to you xox

So fooking behind!

2010-04-13T14:53:00.001+01:00

How is this possible? The blog is barely 3 days old and already I'm behind. Tsk. Pff.

This post should help clear up some bits n bobs :)

Last week I went away with Thom into the countryside (OOHAAH) for my birthday and this led to Thom and I discussing how big sheep were close up and how cute and fluffy they are in the fields. Of course, then he began taking the piss out of me (cast unwittingly as Dougal) to his Father Ted. "See Meri... Close - Far Away - Close - Far Away"

I have only one thing to say to him, Ay laike ur caark... but I didn't realise it was so close ;) (only joking babes, you told the world you had 17" last night and I am backing you all the way)

I wandered into SL yesterday afternoon and IM'd Cisa Batista (Cisa Batista!) the Portuguese Russian socialite and DJ. Being an exciting party girl, I offered to teach her how to play Greedy and we got onto voice to do it. If I said that she was umm, distracted and a bit inclined to lose all her points without really giving a toss, I'd be accurate and fair :) If I said she was a bit crap, I doubt she could sue me for it either.

Anyway, we had a laugh and later when Jells turned up it went from silly to downright obtuse.

At the end of the game (Cisa 0, Meri 10,750) she expressed how she felt about the whole experience.

Later that evening I did my regular set at the Pig and Whistle, delightful pub belonging to Ai Nieuport and Babette Belios. Not as busy as normal but I think that's cus everyone is still eating Easter Eggs and wishing the kids holidays were over.

Babs and Ai have made a great website for their whole base of operations in SL which includes a lot of lovely places, several music venues, shops, a beach and other projects as and when they work on them. Have a ganzer and while ur there, check out my page (under staff) and see the video that Ai took at mine and Thom's party last week. Is NOICE.

Anyway, I'll shup now, at least until tomorrow. It depends on how interesting tonight on SL is :)

12th April - a fateful day

2010-04-13T11:48:00.000+01:00

On the 12th April 2008, early evening in the UK, a six day old Meri was wandering around looking for a party, or even some decent music. Meri looked for indie music and tp'd to a little known (lol) place called Alt7. As she landed she realised there was an ava standing right beside her. She took one glance at his ao, his hair that actually MOVED and his overall demeanor and decided he was too cool for school and legged it.

Course, that early Meri didn't leg it in a cool, teleport out, kinda way. Nope, being a noob she ran like a chicken away from him, across the floor and attempted to sit on a sofa, without much success.

When she did eventually manage to sit down and gather her wits, she realised nobody else was there. Only the too cool for school guy who was sooo patently watching her and in typical Meri fashion she decided to take control and asked him to come and sit down.

So he did, he showed her how his Akeyo's changed colour and she told him she thought he looked like a Gallagher and they chatted and then he took her to a hair shop so that she could get some hair that moved a bit too.

And that, my friends, was pretty much that. Aside from intrusive questioning (from Meri) dire warnings of how SL can ruin your life (from Thom) outrageous flirting (from Meri) ultimate capitulation (from Thom), we were inseparable.

So on the 12th we go back to Alt7, sit on the sofa and watch him change his Akeyo's to pink and have a laugh about how cute we were in the good old days before I could walk properly and when he was still too cool for school.

I'm delighted to say, I've managed to destabilise his coolness to a large degree now, occasionally bringing him down to silly fart level.

As you might know, we had a party last week to celebrate 2 years of existence and of being together and of course, I forgot to take a picture until nearly everyone had left at some ungodly hour. But it was great :) Lots of our SL friends turned up and danced and our good friend Serotonin Raymaker provided the tunes and banter, in the way only he can.

In the spirit of another year gone and what are we going to do with the next, we spent some time contemplating our SL (and each others navels) and have decided we're going to get out and about more, explore and have adventures. The club is pretty much running itself now and it was never our dream to have to babysit it every day.

So, even if you can't always see us, we're still there and love what we've made together.

Good day, Good evening and Welcome

2010-04-11T18:18:00.000+01:00

After two whole years wandering SL, I have finally decided to neaten up my act and begin a blog which will accomplish a few things

1) It's a valid waste of time
2) It's a place to keep the AAi Calendar and it not look completely pants
3) I can spout on and on about what I really think and, in the tradition of blogs, not a soul will read it and it can stay absolutely private. So umm. It's all safe with me :)

Soo, the last week or so has been eventful. On 28/3 it was Thom's second rezzday (Thom is my long suffering partner), on 6/4 my second rezzday, on 8/4 my thirty(mumbles) birthday and on 12/4 it's our second anniversary.

I bought Thom a Tenderlove hud, it sounds wussy I know but actually, it is the best couples animator I've ever seen. The cuddles and the sex are all very close, personal and interactive. I can't mention the price in case Thom reads this but it was worth every linden and only one partner needs it really. The SURL wasn't available at the time of posting but the seller is Kizmet Kidd who also provided an excellent personal gift service.

He bought me (drum roll and yeah those of you who know him are expecting a slutty outfit and a new spanking chair)...

Yep a puddy tat! She's named Sambuca (Sam for short)and does all kind of nice feline things like, rolling around, miaowing, purring, asking for affection, sitting on my lap, playing with stuff and also umm.... crapping

But even so, it's not all pussy in my world at the moment... Thom also bought me a cute new outfit he'd found

As you can see, even Thom has now given in and embraced my inner 'Daisy Duke'. I feel this outfit proves finally to all that I am the natural birth mother of a certain Jellie Arrowmint :)

In club related news... AAi has been quiet this week. Lots of people away for Easter (some of them abroad recording an album - Fartcaster :)) And so what better to finish it off than by playing at Mars Gelbers Mad Hatter's Tea Party last night. Twas a right giggle. I did just over an hour of trusty tuneage and really enjoyed the atmosphere and variety of people who came along.

I've made some new dresses for the shop but can't quite bring myself to part with them yet. Right now they are mine mine mine but I will share them soon, promise :)