fudge it

holy moly. the parents are back today!

we've spent the last two weeks trying to restore both the houses to their former glory (i.e. what they looked like before the parents left). last sunday i spent 7 hours gardening with brothers #2 and 4 and ooh, around 20 minutes flicking worms and spiders at sister #4. (believe me, i don't like them either, but you should have heard her scream.)

we replaced a broken window (brother #2's fault, and he got some jibber jabbering friend of a friend to come fix it), also one smashed door. my fault. don't say a word. 'next time you lose your temper,' they said at home, 'try banging your head against the wall.' my response? 'i tried that, and it hurts!'

sister #4 is also trying to get me to wear a scarf on my pretty lil head (go with me on this, okay?). 'look at you, you're 25.' ok. no i'm not going to take the same scarf and wring it round her scrawny little neck. i've got cable ties that do the trick just fine.

too much for one day, even if i haven't posted for like, 5 days (eek!). stay tuned to hear all about the new job. soon. promise.

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23:18. i realised over an hour ago that it's the last day of big brother, and i also realised that i couldn't care less about who won. no. i'm-a catching up on my links (to your left). look. photos of what i see out the bus window five days a week. i'm getting used to the selfridges building now. slowly. i still think it looks like a giant silver kidney from a distance.

f*ckin' hell. what a goof.

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finished! after five weeks, no more jury service! now i couldn't give a rat's ass about what my new job is going to be like. i just want to get on with it.

at job #1 before i go home. byron, a saturday assistant doing extra hours cos he's a student told me about aneeq calls, an indian guy who does prank calls. byron would like me to add he is a 'bass baritone classical singer, also sings gospel jazz and sang for a millionaire in sutton coldfield.' ('i'm happy with that,' he says as i read that description back to him). i can say that fame hasn't ruined him, he's still the same as he was on his first day here. i think.

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yesterday evening. the end of another horrible day. niece #1 and i are on our way to the supermarket. we always go for the small trolleys, so she can stand on the front bar that holds the front wheels. the plan is we have the list, and as we stop to get each item, she jumps off, grabs what we need, chucks it in the trolley and climbs back on again. yes, it's not allowed. but we're professionals. trust us.

niece #1: are we getting a trolley?
me: uuuuuh no.
niece: are we getting a basket then?
me: ......
niece: are you tired?

and then we had a big hug in the middle of the street.

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it took two people in as many days to make me cry. but then it took the teeny tiny eyes and the teeny tiny face of nephew #4 to send them back to the horrible place where they came from, i dunno where. (he was born 5 days after nephew #3, i didn't want to mention his arrival until i was absolutely sure he was fine and he's coming home tomorrow!)

salam pax is still here and he's got a lot more to tell, y'know.

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in that net cafe again. when it starts to rain on me. could i be more a freak of nature than i already am? and for the record, yes they do have a roof. was going to blog about three books that i managed to read yesterday. i actually got them for sister #5, but because she never got round to it i read them yesterday. one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and one in the evening.

me: So far i've been very lucky when it comes to loony blog fans, in that I have none...
brian: I assume this means you think I'm not loony? I demand a recount!

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in the garden with brother #2, sisters #4 and 5, and occasionally niece #1. niece runs in the garden, pokes fun at brother #2. when he gets up and walks towards her with the saw, she runs back inside. and so on and so on. (bits of) conversation:

me: brother #2 hasn't got any qualifications, and even he knows tadpoles won't survive without water!

me again: you two (the sisters) are like a pair of grannies. what are your granny names going to be?
brother #2: bitchy and bitchier.

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no, i'm not going to carry on as if that error message didn't appear. according to my host that was me messing around with my user profile, so all you lovely people didn't get my whois info. said link was showing my home address and telephone number, and i did more than panic when i saw it. so i 'modified' them a little bit. and that apparently got me into trouble. all i can remember is my disbelief when i heard barry white for hold music, a bit of an argument with some woman with an accent, and then her giving up and letting me have things my way. so yeah. fudgeit.org. owned by me. at fudgeit towers. ha-ha.

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adnan: y'know bushra. i'm not sure if you would like it, but check out transmetropolitan (comic book) at your local comic store. good stuff. :) i was re-reading this email and realised how much you reminded me of spider jerusalem, the main character in the book. ;-D well not entirely but erm.. yea.

so i look at the site, and y'know, i didn't take much notice of it. comics. boys stuff innit? when i texted a guy i knew who was seriously into comics he sent three texts back about it. five minutes ago i told brother #4 (aka semi comic fan boy geek) about what adnan said (he's into watchmen too). and he started laughing, pointing at me and nodding his head. well ok. then he asks me to 'snarl the way you do, you even look like him sometimes.' oh brother.

change of subject. when dad worked the meat industry and i'd go visit him sometimes, i used to really hate those purple light things. hated them. i know what they're for now, and i really wish our kitchen had one. quick lookup on google and i find that it was an ultraviolet insect electrocuting device. cool.

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'don't call her, she'll call you.'
see that sticker up there? all over the city. well, on my bus route anyway. i'm sitting there with my walkman on, managing to ignore everyone and everything but then you see this sticker, or graffiti versions of it. and even the smallest sticker version of it gets your attention. until the bus moves along. when i saw it a couple of months back i couldn't find much about it online, and now there's yourmumrang.co.uk. the site features a complaint and warning received about it, and its own disclaimer:
We at YOUR MUM RANG do not condone the illegal application of stickers or other such material onto other peoples private or business property. Anybody found physically applying our merchandise will be taken to a local community fair and subjected to a talk by a comfortably educated middle-class inhabitant of birmingham, detailing the distress and fear that these criminals embed into the minds of the local community similar to that which you have defaced.

the whole putting stickers up everywhere, or spraying it on walls and writing it on road signs with markers, is that like some sort of meme? what's kind of cool is that the sticker made it all the way to 'san-fran-bloody-cisco!'

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i suppose it's not completely stupid. cos they did fix it in the end innit. and yes, those pictures are back. because i can never make my mind up. and well, it has been over a week now.

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stupid stupid stupid blogger bug.

hey karen, i'll see you in court.

funny, for about 5 seconds.

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so i recorded this little sound clip on a key ring i got for my birthday. niece #3 jumping and singing along to bob the builder. the coolest thing, so i play it to sister #4. big mistake. she likes to 'torture' candles. you know when they're burning and you get some annoying people who like to play with melting wax by either flicking it in your face, or totally messing up the candle so it looks very crap. so she listens to the clip and she's saying 'what? i can't work out what it is!' and hits the record button. and it's gone. she's my sister and i'll call her a bitch if i want to.

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British Library releases mobile menagerie. 'Roaring lions and screeching parrots could take their place alongside top 40 hits and the infamous Nokia tune as the library opens up its archive of wildlife recordings to mobile users. The range of recordings also includes penguins and pigs.' [link via brian]

watch out.

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week 3. nothing to report. except that i'm really tired. and that on saturday the blog had a new addition. step forward nephew #3! two days old, and he's already got a mention here. after a mad dash to bradford and back to see him, we brought back sister #1 and nephew #1 to stay. sister #2 wants him out of her hair so nephew #3 can get settled in. sister-in-law #2 is in labour, and sister-in-law #1 is in hospital with some mystery illness. never a quiet moment, innit.

week 2 saw in the first court-related joke. did you hear about the judge with no fingers? he was called Justice Thumbs. ha. ha. ha.

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geometric blues

hey. like the new tiles? i met iffra on the first day of jury service, and it turns out she has a design degree. so i begged her to do some little patterns for the blog (did i make it difficult to say no?). thank you very much though, they're really cool!

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no jury service until monday, so i'm at work. jonathan and karen are *this* close away from any one of their pc screens looking at this site. someone needs to pen a health warning for it.

hey iffra. you can stop calling me normal now.

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time to tell you how my world is getting smaller and smaller and smaller. 2nd week of jury service. in week 1 i saw a girl i knew first from mosque, and then at this secondary school for girls i went to. this week i noticed a CDT teacher from a mixed secondary school i went to first. that was before i moved on and saw that girl again. you with me? next. one of the guys here went to a uni with one of my other friends. she was also from the same mosque and then the girls secondary school, and subsequently moved to the same neighbourhood as me. in two weeks time karen will be joining me at jury service. who's next?

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