love on a farmboy’s wages
Far too much work on my plate these last few weeks. Naturally, this comes at exactly the time I’m frigging desperate to get out of this job, with no time to go through the Civil Service’s diabolically non-intuitive, cumbersome Job Search site where all the vacancies are uploaded these days.
I did spot one job that looked quite interesting last week. Rang the contact person to ask her about a couple of things related to my eyesight and current working patterns, and got the third degree about what was wrong with me, and that distinct feeling she was already looking for reasons why my disability would make me unsuitable, rather than how they might be able to make what’s politely and compliantly known as ‘reasonable adjustments’ to accommodate me if I was in fact to turn out to be the candidate. Well you know, fuck that, Ms DDA Non-Compliance. You want to be an old-school bigot, your loss. I’m trying to get out of the current job but luckily, right now they’re still pretty keen to hang on to me, so I’ll take my time to find somewhere where the potential future colleagues aren’t giving out ‘fuck off cripple’ vibes.
(Home Office vacancy, though, so what do you expect? That place has been falling apart for the last 15 years. Watch Theresa May’s space, folks.)
I’m a serial fandom monogamist, so the sudden and unexpected 100% upswing in the quality of this season’s Merlin is confusing my shippy little synapses no end! The two XM1C fics I’ve started have been ruthlessly kicked out of the nest by a giant Merlin cuckoo hatching out of nowhere. That just guarantees I’ll have three WIPs on the boil and 33% less chance of any of them seeing the sunshine of day now. Tut.*
This week’s Merlin once again left me satisfied. It’s not too hard to why it’s all working much better for me than the last year or even two have done. Basically, the writing is smarter and funnier, the characters are interacting with each other in a variety of amusing ways, everyone feels a tiny bit less immature and more assured, and the balance of entertainment, drama, comedy, poignancy and optimism is – I think – just about perfect.
Most of all, there’s a real warmth running through everything these days. That comes across in part from the affection the characters are showing for each other: everything from Arthur’s unabashed concern for Merlin, care for his safety, desire for his company, and (finally) a totally straight-up expression of pride and praise for Merlin’s true loyalty and courage, to the quiet moments of affirmation – Gwaine riding off with Arthur to search for Merlin, the knights being touchy-feely, everyone’s snarky-fond banter (fair reminds me of happy S2 Torchwood heydays, sob!), Leon’s pride in the armoury while he’s cheerfully joking with Merlin about wanting to kill Arthur, the effortless team-working between Gaius and Gwen, and Gwen’s exchanges with Arthur – the naked Arthur most of all. She’s so charming and playful in that scene, while lying like a mofo to keep Arthur and Merlin both safe and save the day.
There also seems to have been a real change under that, with the writers and showrunners themselves actually loving all their characters, treating all of them with humanity and affection. The way mindfucked Merlin behaved, for example, his brisk, scornful determination to assassinate Arthur with Real!Merlin’s eternal cheerful bunny demeanour, as well as his fatal clumsiness. It came over to me as amusing, playful, when similar Merlin’s-a-clumsy-prat sequences last year felt cruel and contemptuous. Arthur’s still a bit of a clueless posh chump, still a terrible judge of character – but he’s also got a kind of quiet dignity these days, which makes him less the butt of the joke. I like that they’re also rationalising his dependency on the sinister Agravaine, by making Arthur himself point out how lost he feels without the wisdom of his father’s experience, how much he wants to live up to Uther’s greatness, at the same time as not emulating his cruelty or brutality.
I like shows that treat the characters I like with some measure of compassion, so I do want to see even the villains given some sympathy – and that’s coming across in the twisted relationship between poor desolate Morgana and Agravaine himself, who actually treats her tenderly and with respect that he shows to no-one else. The sequence between herself and Old Merlin (what’s this ‘Dragoon’ business, Merlin peeps? Did he make that name for the old dude disguise some time last year? I thought Old!Merlin was called Emrys? #clueless) was nicely done, with Morgana herself making the point that she knows exactly what loyalty is, even if there’s no-one left alive tho whom she feels loyal. Even if the fight was just two mages smashing the shit out of each other all across the forest floor, it still felt strangely potent, this sense that these are the Morgana and Merlin of legend, very closely matched in their powers and abilities.
I also just adore Old Merlin, he’s every kind of awesome and his grumpy delight in running rings around the knights who tease him so gleefully when he’s not wearing 60 years of disguise is delicious. Colin Morgan plays the shit out of that role and the age-makeup, plus his acting skill, blows me away. Most of all, though, it’s his tee-hee-hee naughty relishing of his own scope for mischief that’s just wonderful and fun!
I could do with Gwen having more to do than be Arthur’s ballsy love-interest. I could wish Morgana had more to do as an ace Big Bad, but that’s limited by her having no regular allies anymore apart from five minutes of rather UST-ish nattering with Agravaine each week. I could really wish for some other female presence on the regular cast, especially if that could be Lindsay Duncan again. Why can’t she come back and be Arthur’s go-to Wise Adviser, instead of Uncle Badtouch?
But at least the creepy hint of misogyny from last year also seems to have been put away for the time being, so fingers crossed. And right now everyone’s pretty mutually loved-up, which works for me, and also no-one bats an eyelid anymore about how the King of Camelot is desperate to drop everything and send half the kingdom off to look for his lost and favourite servant – least of all Arthur himself: this also works for me. I can’t be doing with shows that have a panic attack any time a man shows an ounce of emotional interest towards another man he’s not actually directly related to, and Merlin went down that path pretty sharply for the last couple of years, pimping its bromance and then frantically cringing and flailing in what felt like an absurd homophobic shame. Now all the knights grope each other shamelessly, Merlin spends most eps draped right on top of Arthur, and Arthur can’t wait to grab Merlin and give him a great huge hug even when he’s covered in shit. And if that isn’t the mark of a good King, I don’t know what is!
(sorry about the cut-fails: posting interface is like Wank Central these days. Livejournal, what the fuck?)
*Pish, of course I’m not going to write it really! I just like, uhm, thinking about it a lot. hmm… so, just when i thought i was over and done with potter and stated goodbye because the last was released and therefore, i would also be released. it would be a clean break. it wasn’t. i tried to make this mix a more general DOOMED ship mix because there is nothing like sailing under pirate colours (HOIST THEM OH!) i had to come to terms with this still being about those assholes. so this is me exorcising my demons and i felt like i had to top that last mix but i completely lazed my way through the graphics on this one. L.A.Z.E.D. anyway, i love them so much it circles around to hate and i think we’re finished but the momentum keeps it going and it circles back to the love part. i that it’s kind of like that for them too because of that inexplicable bond that tethers. this doesn’t follow any kind of chronological progression or logic for that matter, but i’m sure there are themes and threads woven throughout. i give it much thought. the only order to this thing is a he said/she said structure. (yes, i segregated the sexes. HOW ARCHAIC!) because while love may be this indefinable nebulous thing, there’s always a reason. something happened in that tent and i’m pretty sure they used more than one alias whilst on the run. i think this is more about the senses or ~feelings or whatever and being caught in someways and progressive in others and left in that baffling area of WHAT ARE WE and HOW DO WE HOLD THIS THING? because damn, these fucking may not be going through a war anymore, but probably still fighting. i keep thinking of the after. and their after was never meant, as we are erroneously led to believe, to be a happy one tied up in a perfect bow. so this is post-post-war post-epilogue… probably.
(him)
next to you // bell x1
we’d be stuck in this place
for an age or two
i hope the wind changes
and the vacuum in space will draw me to you
Android has a mysterious case of gigantism, and I am not entirely certain why manufacturers keep feeling the need to have a more massive phone than the next guy. The size war (all male anatomical euphemisms aside) is on, and we’re not sure when it’s going to end. Take a look at these device charts for the three major Android manufacturers in (pretty much) chronological order of release:
Somewhat ironically, Motorola has shown the slowest rate of touchscreen device size-creep of any of the major manufacturers, having started out pretty huge with what, at the time, was the gargantuan DROID X. However, both Samsung and HTC have released significantly bigger devices than Motorola’s biggest handset yet, the DROID RAZR (the Galaxy Note, Galaxy Nexus, Infuse, and Sensational XL, respectively).
Do we really need such big phones? It seems that many Android fans go wild when a new milestone in screen size is announced (as was evidence by the excitement around the Galaxy Note), but how long can this go on? The Galaxy Note has most recently taken the crown as the largest Android phone to date, eeking out a narrow victory over the original Dell Streak, which measured 47.6 square inches to the Note’s 48.
In all practicality, you cannot stick the Note in your pocket. Even putting my DROID BIONIC in my pocket, which is smaller than the RAZR, feels a bit unnatural. I loved that my old Nexus One was so easy to use with one hand free, and that it never felt unwieldy. I want to use two hands to reach the opposite end of the display.
Bigger isn’t always better. Apple has had large success with the iPhone’s 3.5″ display, but it seems Android manufacturers are targeting a perceived demographic of consumers who want even more screen real estate. While phones will inevitably top out at a certain size, will they then contract back to smaller form factors again? Many of you agreed that 4-4.3″ was the “ideal” size for a phone display, though it seems 4.5″ is rapidly becoming the new standard. What’s next, 4.7″?
Phone thickness has, on the other hand, begun plummeting. Samsung’s Fascinate, based on the Galaxy S, was 10.5mm at its thinnest point, but the upcoming Galaxy Nexus is a mere 8.9mm – clear progress. Motorola’s 7.1mm RAZR has set the thickness bar particularly high (or low?), and perhaps this could make carrying such a huge device a little less annoying – though numerous reviewers have commented that its unusual width makes the device uncomfortable to hold. Without much phone for your thumb and forefinger to pinch, this could actually make holding the phone a worse experience than if it were thicker.
The solution? Well, it depends on whether or not you see a problem. I always thought the Nexus One was the ideal form factor, and though the Nexus S was comfortable in-hand as well, I still like the idea of a small, powerful phone. I comprehend why many want devices with more massive displays for gaming, video watching, eBook reading, and less squinting, but to see that manufacturers have all but given up on making smaller flagship devices is a bit disconcerting.
The kitchen island as a stand-alone platform in the middle of the kitchen provides convenience and efficiency by creating more workspace. When the island is located in the center of the kitchen more space in automatically created. In most situations a kitchen island is the ideal way to separate the kitchen from the living room. If the kitchen island has cook top, sinks or pull-out drawer refrigerators then this accommodates greater convenience and socializing since one can do dishes and preparation while conversing with guests in the living room. There are endless uses for kitchen islands.
According to the National Association of HomeBuilders (NAHB), kitchen islands are one of the most popular kitchen design features among today’s consumers. The NAHB also reports that buyers of new homes have also indicated a desire for kitchen islands as well. Actually some 80% of homebuyers consider a kitchen island to be an absolute must.
Some newer kitchen island ideas include the following features: rolling islands that can be used where a large island won’t fit, granite-topped islands, and islands with furniture like features such as pilasters.
New homebuyers aren’t the only ones that should consider a kitchen island design for their kitchen.
Some older homes with an awkward kitchen floor plan with limited space can also benefit from a kitchen island design idea. Closed off kitchens have been transformed into more open looking kitchens by lowering existing walls half way to forms islands between the kitchen and nearby living space.
Many Kitchen Island Styles
Kitchen Islands have become so popular that this has even led to the creation of unique design styles of their own. A kitchen island can have the same design as the main counter and cabinets or it can have its own unique design.
Before deciding on any type of kitchen design you need to be certain of the shape. In addition traditional rectangle or square a rounded or oval island can bring a whole new look to your kitchen.
Whether in a single row kitchen or as part of an L-shape design the kitchen island will be the heart of the whole kitchen. Some basic kitchen design ideas need to be considered.
Kitchen Islands can have some additional design options like breakfast bars and installed appliances which can achieve the ‘triangle’ design of sink-stove-refrigerator that is considered one of the top kitchen design ideas.
Kitchen Islands are also available in many styles and designs such as: Contemporary, Traditional, American Folk and French Country.
Many kitchen islands can be created with natural woods such as, Northern Maple, Red Oak, Poplar, Birch, and plantation-grown exotic woods. Other kinds of kitchen islands are constructed of stainless steel, or wood combined with stainless steel.
Island tops are usually hard wood, granite or marble, stainless steel, or butcher block, which is usually Hardrock Maple fastened end or edge grain to prevent cracking and warping.
What to Include in a Kitchen Island
Some features to consider in adding a kitchen island can include the oven, kitchen exhaust hood, electric switches and outlets, and storage and shelves. Finally as for the material of the island counter while you could use the same material for the island counter as you have for the kitchen counter it is
possible to consider different materials to create an more interesting look.