Burglarization? Er, no thanks...

WORDS THAT MAKE ME ANGRY.

Places That Have Decriminalised Non-Medical Cannabis In The US

This looks like a lot more than I imagined it would be!

I'd say that's a sign of heading in the right direction.

Dave Gorman: Blessed Are The Children

This is an interesting read - indeed, Dave Gorman is an interesting guy!

I've been thinking about this and I'm still not sure what I would do in this situation - Dave did well, but I worry that I wouldn't be able to hold back so much...

Cha Cha Lessons

I was up late the other night watching BB Live and Noirin getting off with Siavash. Lord knows how that made me start thinking about the cha cha lessons I had at primary school, but I can assure you it did.

I had the lessons when I was about eight, in Class 4 with Miss Gardner. Incidentally, she suggested to my mother that I come along with her and Mr. Gardner (her dad, not her husband - can it get much worse?) to their cha cha lesson once a week because I was so good at it.

I was only doing the lessons at school for a bit of fun, my mother knew this and we both burst out laughing when she repeated Miss Gardner's proposal.

Back to me, at this point in time, in bed thinking about all of this, I began to visualise myself  "doing the cha cha" and analyse the steps. I concluded that it's very similar to when you're little and you BEG an adult to let you "walk on their feet".

I remember the exact moment I realised I should never become a dead weight unexpectedly, otherwise I'd run the risk of pulling their arms off as well as breaking their toes.

Everyone's Scared Of Something...

We all have something that frightens us, but do you realise how many irrational fears (phobias) there are?

Here's a site that has a very long list - I've already found from friends that even this doesn't contain every single phobia!

What are you afraid of?

Spotting A Liar

I've always been a very gullible person; this is in the sense that I believe daft things people will tell me, however I'm still good at knowing if someone close to me is lying about something important.

Does that make sense?

I've been going through my StumbleUpon favourites and found a site I came across a while ago about how to notice particular "Signs of Deception" in people and work out if they're lying or not.

It's only basic information, but it's very good if you can't instinctively spot a liar!

The Onion: America's Finest News Source

The Onion is an American satirical newspaper that can also be viewed online. On the website they have radio clips and videos as well as their usual written content.

Sad Onion

I Stumbled Upon it some time last year and have since checked in every couple of weeks to see any new stuff they've put up - it's really funny!

There's also a Youtube channel for The Onion. It's hilarious so see some viewers' comments on these satirical videos - a lot of people think it's all true and can get quite frustrated...

College

I had my college induction the other day. I plan on starting an Access Course this September, which will carry on through to next Summer. It's the equivalent of doing A Levels in one year rather than two.

I have to stress, it's very important to me that I do well on this course and that I don't let myself get distracted. I've been to college twice already and left both times after four months. I wasn't ready for it then, but I am now! After college I'll be going on to University to do a Social Work Degree.

I decided to take Psychology, Social Work and English Literature. The first two will be pretty heavy so I chose English so I can take a breather now and then...

**March 2011 Edit: I didn't complete college, surprisingly enough... Oh well, fourth time lucky, eh?**

Twitter

Most of us have probably signed up to Twitter by now. People seem to either think it's a brilliant idea or a complete waste of time.

Both are right.

I signed up a few months ago and I think I've probably got the right balance between completely inane, pointless "tweets" and massively boring ones.

I have my updates protected, meaning that if someone wants to follow me then I have to accept their request before they see my profile or updates. I've had it like that the whole time because I heard about other people being followed by spammers who are just there to make money or advertise porn.

EDIT: I no longer have my updates protected - this means I can block and report any spammers who follow me. Ha!

It's not something I would recommend using as a "micro-blog", as some have described it. Nobody cares what you had for breakfast or which of your lovely cats has knocked something off the mantelpiece today. I think it's great just for being able to share links, anecdotes or little bits of information quickly and easily without all of the other crap associated with sites like Facebook or Myspace.

Social Networking

My Little Sister's Artwork

My sister's only 15 but she's turned inot a proper little artist!

I had a look through her GCSE coursework today and took some photos; they don't really do her work justice because I took them on my phone but you'll get the idea.

This first one is my absolute favourite - she really surprises me with her skills, especially when she starts using techniques on her work that I haven't even heard of...


Another three examples follow of her work on eyes - I think part of their coursework was to do studies on the different facial features and to use different media as much as possible.





This one doesn't look amazing because I went all daft for a minute and took the photo in quite a dimly lit room.... Anyway, it's some apples innit!



Finally, a self portrait. I was amazed when I saw this - there's no mistaking who it is! I'm so proud of her for what she's acheiving at the minute and feel very secure in the knowledge that she's going to carry on with what she loves.





**March 2011 Edit: My little sister is now 17 and still getting on with her art, she studies it at college now**

myLot

I've been using myLot for about a year now, on and off.

It's a great place to go if you want to talk to loads of interesting people who certainly have a lot to say!

Of course there are the odd few trolls about, the same as with any social networking site, but it's unbelievable how efficiently the user community bands together to get rid of them.

There are also people who join simply to add hundreds of friends and post one-line responses to thousands of discussions. The myLot admin soon catch on to this though and ban spammers very quickly.

By posting interesting discussions and useful responses to others' discussions on myLot you can earn money as well as great friendships. The amounts are tiny at first, but if you have the right attitude to the site then you'll soon see the money coming in. They pay via PayPal, on or before the 15th of every month.

The most important thing to remember is that myLot favours quality over quantity. It would be more profitable for you to post a couple of detailed discussions and five or six useful responses to others' discussions than it would to go mad and post 100 useless, one-liner discussions and responses. As I've mentioned, myLot acts quickly when weeding out spammers.

You should also try to get some referrals as you will earn a percentage of everything they earn (I think it's 25%). I don't have any because I've been lazy about it, but I know it would be very beneficial for me to get some!

Finally, all I can say is please don't post anything until you've read the Terms of Use, the FAQ and the Guidelines. They contain all the rules you need to keep to, such as not posting referral links in discussions. If you post a discussion that breaks the rules then it will get deleted pretty quickly.

After all that seriousness, you probably need to relax... so go ahead! Sign up, get posting and have a great time!

**March 2011 Edit I still love myLot and have recently returned there after a bit of a break! It's well worth it for anyone to have a look and sign up to myLot, trust me ;)**

I've Been Lazy

I've really been procrastinating recently. I haven't even written anything for the magazine this issue, that's very lazy...

I have been reading quite a bit though, I keep telling myself that's something.

TenfootCity Magazine Online

I shall have to be loyal to my city here and make sure I tell you all about the local magazine I write for.

It's a wonderful little thing, TenfootCity Magazine; a collaboration of articles and the such like, written by a group of people each with a very unique personality!

I only started writing for the publication about four months ago and have since become part of the team and a lot more confident in speaking up and giving my opinion in our meetings.

We're always emailing each other with great ideas for new articles or themes, as well as new "extra curricular" activities such as TenfootCity Nights (events at clubs and pubs in Hull with local bands playing), new venues for meetings and squillions of questions for the editor, the revered Nick Taylos (he has a lot to put up with, working with us!).

What's even better, though, is that we have an online version as well as the hard copy we distribute throughout the city. The website makes for a great place to write about absolutely anything and not really have to worry about little things like the word count of an article or whether or not it's going to "fit in" with the rest of the issue.

You can visit the site here, which I highly recommend!

**March 2011 Edit: I no longer write for this magazine, I put it down to artistic differences... Also, the site seems to be under construction, which I think means they've stopped bothering with it**