Barkley Manor (Quinn’s daycare place) mentioned today that they had found my blog, which I found only slightly disturbing (I write more for strangers and myself than I do the people I know. If someone mentions that they have read it I always end up thinking ‘oh shit – what did I write? Will they take offence?’). Anyway, they mentioned that they are now on flickr and I was delighted to see some familiar faces.

This is Murphy, and he’s the kind of dog I orginally wanted. Unfortunately when I was in the market for a pup I lived in a fairly small inner city apartment, and a dog like M just wasn’t going to fit. I think he’s one of the Barkley Manor’s staff dogs, because several times when I’ve gone to pick up Quinn he’s been around, just hanging out.

And he’s the kind of dog that has no qualms about demanding attention and cuddles. When your sitting on the couch waiting for your pup to come back and this giant dog is sitting next to you, almost as big as you are, it’s hard to deny such a gorgeous face a few pats and a cuddle.

For serious, would you deny such a pretty face?

Friends (online or no) often manage to say those things that make you giggle, put you immediately in a better mood, and remind you that no matter how crap things are (or how awful VB programming can be), you’ve been through worse:

elly_rarg I work with some ridiculously smart people, and I’m glad they are willing to help, despite whatever work it is they have to do! about 1 hour ago from web

vivaluxury @elly_rarg “I work with some ridiculously smart people” – that must make a nice change ;D about 1 hour ago from BeTwittered in reply to elly_rarg

Today I’m thankful for such friends :)

Another surface piercing – hurrah!

Hot, right?

[edit] No, it doesn’t go through the bone. It’s just a surface piercing – through the skin, under and then out the other end. The bar is kinda shaped like a ‘U’. Just to confirm, through SKIN, not bone! [/edit]

Last night The Boy and I went to the Auckland Lantern Festival, which was fantastic. Loads of food stalls lined Princes St (we managed to gorge ourselves on pad thai and dumplings!), there were loads of gorgeous lanterns (many which reminded me of objects you’d find in PS3′s Little Big Planet) and many cute little asian stalls (I got The Boy a bamboo hat for a mere $3!)

There was loads of shows and displays. We saw a dragon dance (I love those), and listened to people sing in languages other than English. We also (randomly) watched a group of people dress up in medieval costumes and ‘duel’ with plastic swords. The Boy almost hurt himself laughing, and it reminded me of Laire from Role Models. Although, in a much less cool or funny way.

The only downside was that we took Quinn, and walking through the crowds it seemed that every few seconds someone wanted to touch him, or talk about him. Yes, he’s a dog, yes he’s fully grown, NO you can NOT touch him, NO you can not buy him from me. In the end I picked him up and carried him, growling at anyone who dared reach out toward him (which was basically everyone). I’m quite over the phrase ‘OoooOOO – Look at that cute little dog!’

It got worse when Quinn accidentally got covered in teriyaki sauce and some asian lady said “Oh, he’s SO CUTE, I just want to eat him!’. We left shortly after that, and I don’t think I’ll take him to another festival again. If Quinn was a St Bernard or a Alsatian or something they would show proper respect and not touch him. Apparently cute and little says “by all means, stranger, do what you want – molest me”.

Sorry, ever so slightly bitter on behalf of my little pup! Apart from the weird dog fascination, it was a great night! The festival is running all weekend, so if your in Auckland go check it out!

I just signed a petition asking Prime Minister Gordon Brown to include a representative from the African Union at the G20 – a group of leaders of the world’s twenty largest economies – summit in the UK this spring. This will be a key summit for shaping the road the world takes out of the financial crisis, and it’s crucial that the world’s poorest people be a part of that process.

Wanna help? Take action by visiting the petition site, and sign it yourself.

This is an exceptional opportunity to get a seat at the table for developing nations. If they play a role in remaking the world’s financial systems, it’s significantly more likely that they will be able to reap the rewards of those systems. That’s a big step in helping people work their way out of poverty.

Signing it can’t hurt, right?

So with the being sick and the hens party and work and everything I’ve been a bit lazy and I did all the testing for rarg in Chrome, which is by far my preferred browser. It’s also probably the least used browser out there at the moment.

I’ve only just checked out rarg in ie and Firefox (I know, I know, I should have checked while I was developing and testing) and it looks, er, a bit different. A bit horribly different. Particularly in ie which is always a bit of a troublemaker in terms of web development.

Sigh.

Do me a favour and download Chrome. It’s got a bunch of fancy features (searching from the address bar, thumbnails of your most visited sites when you open a new tab and the fancy ‘crash control’ which means if one of your tabs fucks up, the others don’t and you don’t have to close your browser). It’s a nice streamlined browser that doesn’t fuck things up like ie does, and isn’t as clunky as firefox.

I will eventually figure out what it is in ie and firefox that is making rarg look horrible, I just have to find some time in which to do it!

Because it would be nice if he looked a little less emo, and more like a dog.