The End of Days
31/12/2017 11:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
izmeinaBig Bad Mac is playing nice after spending time in the naughty corner but I won't be holding my breath
It's that time of year again. Time to look back on the last 12 months and get all nostalgic
1. What did you do in 2017 that you'd never done before?
Staying up until 3 in the morning reading (and replying to) Donald Trump’s tweets. Not once but several times. No. I don’t have a life but at least I don’t have intelligence briefings that I should be attending to instead.
2. Did you keep your New Years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don’t do New Year’s resolutions but I do have a little green book for plotting and planning with deadlines for 3 months, 1 year and 5 years. Of course the map is not the territory and the grand plans are more honoured in the breach than in the observance, but the simple act of doing this ritual 4 times a year does result in some items being almost inadvertently getting completed and draws attention to those that keep rolling over again and again.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
No.Thank God but it was a very close call.
Out in the big bad world, the death I was saddest about was Tom Petty who sort of got ignored due to the drama around the Las Vegas Loser who murdered some 60 people a few days previously
Then there was also the political cartoonist Bill Leake and the singer Gurrumul Yunupingu
5. What countries did you visit?
Only Cyberia
6. What would you like to have in 2018 that you lacked in 2017?
Some grand plan and purpose for existence.
A bunch of book cases to sort the stash
A waist!
7. What dates from 2017 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
There are simply too many to choose from. Some are personal and others are political.
So I picked some days that were a bit of both.
Tuesday 17th January
A P J Harvey concert at one of the serpent sacred sites.
It was outdoors in gorgeous weather and it was a very spooky and surreal experience
There are so many that they will need a post of their own but a huge percentage of them follow from Friday 20th January.
Izzie was such a sad serpent that she came home from work and went to bed at 7pm in order to get sufficient beauty sleep to be up in time for 1am local time to watch the whole sad spectacle live on 2 channels because it is always good to have a Plan B
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Winning Camp Nano in April and July and the main event Nanowrimo in November
Keeping a dozen or so tree seedlings alive for 3 years after planting them
Getting used to the idea of putting serpent words out in the wilderness by means of Snark Central also known as Twitter
9. What was your biggest failure?
Doing nothing whatsoever with all those first drafts and all that stuff learnt in those online courses
Procrastinating Big League on getting the Lair sorted. Especially all the homeless books although I did manage to acquire a chest of drawers with room for oodles of books
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Just the usual serpent insanity and a dodgy diagnosis
11. What was the best thing you bought?
An annual subscription to the digital version of the Washington Post. Yessss. That evil failing FAKE NEWS peddling Amazon owned dirty old rag!
Looks like I well and truly got in on the ground floor with a locked in price that is less than a quarter of what they are charging now for the most basic digital subscription
And Izzie gets all the bells and whistles including a free 30 day subscription every month to for a friend to try before buying
Most of the time I still read the stories that I get to from Twitter links and the odd email in the inbox rather than going to the main page.
So looking forward to the day when Mueller says to Trump “Your’e FIRED” and it is on the front pages of WAPO and this serpent gets the juicy gossip hot off the press
But unfortunately, it will take more than one Special Investigation agent to bring down Don the Con. As long as the Greedy Old Pervert party keep backing him, he can literally get away with murder. On 5th Avenue or in Jerusalem.
Books, books and more books and most of them for 2 or 3 silver sickles. It’s one of the perks of working in a charity shop
Also 96 silver sickles for a basic model Lenovo tablet because the Tweet Stone is simply too tiny and inconvenient for so many things and the monster screen Big Mac is far too flaky these days
12. Where did most of your money go?
The biggest expense for the year were the annual council rates and water charges, Most likely followed by bus fares and lots of pots of tea. Being mortgage free means there’s more left over for the important things in life like books and coffees
13. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
The freaky fringe festival
Coursera
This is an online arena for folks addicted to learning all sorts of strange and peculiar things and long may they be of no use to anyone
Nanowrimo
An ounce of achievement beats a tone of entertainment. It’s fun to go unleash the inner beast on a crazy squiggling fest.
And of course - the enormous elephant in the room
The Train wreck that is United States politics.
This serpent is such a glutton for punishment that I watched all of the inauguration and the equally riveting Comey testimony. Every bit of it until they got to the private top secret stuff.
14. What song will always remind you of 2017?
The Trump Train
15. Compared to this time last year, are you:
Older or wiser?
Obviously older and hopefully wiser too
Thinner or fatter?
Fatter. Ask Petunia - that's the only bit of Izzie that she is capable of noticing.
Richer or poorer?
I’ve got everything I need and most of what I want so that makes me much better off than most folks
16. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Gardening and growing things
17. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Lurking on Twitter at ungodly hours.
Dealing with the hissy fits and tantrums of a cranky Big Mac computer
18. How did you spend Christmas?
At the Dursleys. It was sort of doomy as Uncle Vernon is such a miserable Grinch.
19. Did you fall in love in 2017?
I love to hate Trumplethinskin
20. What was your favorite TV program?
Since the analog signal got nuked I no longer have a television but online I have taken quite a shine to Alec Baldwin’s segments on Saturday Night Live along with the occasional snippet of Samantha Bee’s Full Frontal and John Oliver
Scary that the most accurate news these days is provided by comedians and cartoonists. That’s what happens when the court jester becomes king
21. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Don the Con has been on the radar since March 2016 but since then I can add just about his whole family and minions and especially the uber creepy Zombie Queen Kelly Anne Conway along with Sarah Huckabee Sanders, General Kelly, Steve Bannon and slimy Mike Pence
22. What was the best book you read?
How can I be expected to pick only one?
The Art of the Deal - Tony Schwartz with Donald Trump
Entertaining and amusing but for all the wrong reasons.
The Big Short by Michael Lewis
The Global Financial Crisis for beginners. Seen the movie and loved it but the book was had a whole lot more gory details for dedicated devotees of hard core Goblin Porn
Of course the usual rules apply when it comes to bailouts
Privatise the profits and socialise the losses
The No Ass Hole Rule
A book dedicated to the jerks at work - what they really cost and how to get rid of them
Written way back in 2007, there were a good few pages devoted to the slime ball Harvey Weinstein. Sexual harassment was never explicitly stated but it seems even back then he was a well known jerk fond of using tantrums before escalating to smear campaigns and lawyers to get his own way. Sounds suspiciously like a certain president.
23. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Found this one a few years ago but her voice is so gorgeous that she gets another mention
Divna - the spooky voice of an angel as beautiful as the Celestial Siren herself - Lisa Gerrard
24. What did you want and get?
A bunch of books on the Izzie wish list at bargain basement prices
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
The Giver
The Upside of Irrationality
And The Barefoot Investor are just some of the booty
25. What did you want and not get?
A bunch of indictments with Donald’s name on them
26. What was your favourite film of this year?
I don’t think I even managed to get to the movies this year
27. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I’m pleading the 5th amendment on this one. AGAIN
28. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
A bunch of indictments bearing the names of Jared Kushner, Michael Pence and Donald J Trump for acts of treason, collusion and money laundering
29. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2017?
Fashion is an alien concept to this slobbish serpent. But we are rather partial to green hats, baggy blouses and long skirts to hide all the blubber
30. What kept you sane?
Sane - Izzie sane? Never ever?
31. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
David Rowe - the political cartoonist. Surely one of the best in the world. Certainly one of the most wicked and twisted of them all.
32. What political issue stirred you the most?
Pleading the 5th Amendment on this one ;)
All of them but especially watching the insidious influence that power has on people and the elaborate justifications conjured to explain the complete trashing of a whole bunch of election promises.
But the standout star of the year just has to be Trumplethinskin
33. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2017:
I can think of two
It is better to be a fountain than a drain
Habits begin as cobwebs and end as cables
I sussed this one out last year but this year was able to take advantage of the power of habit to put a whole bunch of things on autopilot. Using habits as a friend rather than an enemy is an excellent way of getting stuff done with little effort.
36. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
Well actually there is a poem that perfectly sums up the surreal strangeness
The Second Coming
“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
And of course this little gem from last year
Are you, are you, coming to the train,
Led by a man, who wants to break the chains,
Establishment is terrified, they can't control his reign,
Let's meet, this year, on the Trump Train,
It's ever so suitable that they based this song from The Hunger Games
In the story, the song was intended to be a marching anthem by rebels who united against a dictatorial liar who lived at the height of luxury as the people he subjugated through fear, division, and intimidation starved. People sing this song as they march toward almost certain death.
And one last song
The Wheel
It's that time of year again. Time to look back on the last 12 months and get all nostalgic
1. What did you do in 2017 that you'd never done before?
Staying up until 3 in the morning reading (and replying to) Donald Trump’s tweets. Not once but several times. No. I don’t have a life but at least I don’t have intelligence briefings that I should be attending to instead.
2. Did you keep your New Years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don’t do New Year’s resolutions but I do have a little green book for plotting and planning with deadlines for 3 months, 1 year and 5 years. Of course the map is not the territory and the grand plans are more honoured in the breach than in the observance, but the simple act of doing this ritual 4 times a year does result in some items being almost inadvertently getting completed and draws attention to those that keep rolling over again and again.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
No.Thank God but it was a very close call.
Out in the big bad world, the death I was saddest about was Tom Petty who sort of got ignored due to the drama around the Las Vegas Loser who murdered some 60 people a few days previously
Then there was also the political cartoonist Bill Leake and the singer Gurrumul Yunupingu
5. What countries did you visit?
Only Cyberia
6. What would you like to have in 2018 that you lacked in 2017?
Some grand plan and purpose for existence.
A bunch of book cases to sort the stash
A waist!
7. What dates from 2017 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
There are simply too many to choose from. Some are personal and others are political.
So I picked some days that were a bit of both.
Tuesday 17th January
A P J Harvey concert at one of the serpent sacred sites.
It was outdoors in gorgeous weather and it was a very spooky and surreal experience
There are so many that they will need a post of their own but a huge percentage of them follow from Friday 20th January.
Izzie was such a sad serpent that she came home from work and went to bed at 7pm in order to get sufficient beauty sleep to be up in time for 1am local time to watch the whole sad spectacle live on 2 channels because it is always good to have a Plan B
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Winning Camp Nano in April and July and the main event Nanowrimo in November
Keeping a dozen or so tree seedlings alive for 3 years after planting them
Getting used to the idea of putting serpent words out in the wilderness by means of Snark Central also known as Twitter
9. What was your biggest failure?
Doing nothing whatsoever with all those first drafts and all that stuff learnt in those online courses
Procrastinating Big League on getting the Lair sorted. Especially all the homeless books although I did manage to acquire a chest of drawers with room for oodles of books
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Just the usual serpent insanity and a dodgy diagnosis
11. What was the best thing you bought?
An annual subscription to the digital version of the Washington Post. Yessss. That evil failing FAKE NEWS peddling Amazon owned dirty old rag!
Looks like I well and truly got in on the ground floor with a locked in price that is less than a quarter of what they are charging now for the most basic digital subscription
And Izzie gets all the bells and whistles including a free 30 day subscription every month to for a friend to try before buying
Most of the time I still read the stories that I get to from Twitter links and the odd email in the inbox rather than going to the main page.
So looking forward to the day when Mueller says to Trump “Your’e FIRED” and it is on the front pages of WAPO and this serpent gets the juicy gossip hot off the press
But unfortunately, it will take more than one Special Investigation agent to bring down Don the Con. As long as the Greedy Old Pervert party keep backing him, he can literally get away with murder. On 5th Avenue or in Jerusalem.
Books, books and more books and most of them for 2 or 3 silver sickles. It’s one of the perks of working in a charity shop
Also 96 silver sickles for a basic model Lenovo tablet because the Tweet Stone is simply too tiny and inconvenient for so many things and the monster screen Big Mac is far too flaky these days
12. Where did most of your money go?
The biggest expense for the year were the annual council rates and water charges, Most likely followed by bus fares and lots of pots of tea. Being mortgage free means there’s more left over for the important things in life like books and coffees
13. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
The freaky fringe festival
Coursera
This is an online arena for folks addicted to learning all sorts of strange and peculiar things and long may they be of no use to anyone
Nanowrimo
An ounce of achievement beats a tone of entertainment. It’s fun to go unleash the inner beast on a crazy squiggling fest.
And of course - the enormous elephant in the room
The Train wreck that is United States politics.
This serpent is such a glutton for punishment that I watched all of the inauguration and the equally riveting Comey testimony. Every bit of it until they got to the private top secret stuff.
14. What song will always remind you of 2017?
The Trump Train
15. Compared to this time last year, are you:
Older or wiser?
Obviously older and hopefully wiser too
Thinner or fatter?
Fatter. Ask Petunia - that's the only bit of Izzie that she is capable of noticing.
Richer or poorer?
I’ve got everything I need and most of what I want so that makes me much better off than most folks
16. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Gardening and growing things
17. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Lurking on Twitter at ungodly hours.
Dealing with the hissy fits and tantrums of a cranky Big Mac computer
18. How did you spend Christmas?
At the Dursleys. It was sort of doomy as Uncle Vernon is such a miserable Grinch.
19. Did you fall in love in 2017?
I love to hate Trumplethinskin
20. What was your favorite TV program?
Since the analog signal got nuked I no longer have a television but online I have taken quite a shine to Alec Baldwin’s segments on Saturday Night Live along with the occasional snippet of Samantha Bee’s Full Frontal and John Oliver
Scary that the most accurate news these days is provided by comedians and cartoonists. That’s what happens when the court jester becomes king
21. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Don the Con has been on the radar since March 2016 but since then I can add just about his whole family and minions and especially the uber creepy Zombie Queen Kelly Anne Conway along with Sarah Huckabee Sanders, General Kelly, Steve Bannon and slimy Mike Pence
22. What was the best book you read?
How can I be expected to pick only one?
The Art of the Deal - Tony Schwartz with Donald Trump
Entertaining and amusing but for all the wrong reasons.
The Big Short by Michael Lewis
The Global Financial Crisis for beginners. Seen the movie and loved it but the book was had a whole lot more gory details for dedicated devotees of hard core Goblin Porn
Of course the usual rules apply when it comes to bailouts
Privatise the profits and socialise the losses
The No Ass Hole Rule
A book dedicated to the jerks at work - what they really cost and how to get rid of them
Written way back in 2007, there were a good few pages devoted to the slime ball Harvey Weinstein. Sexual harassment was never explicitly stated but it seems even back then he was a well known jerk fond of using tantrums before escalating to smear campaigns and lawyers to get his own way. Sounds suspiciously like a certain president.
23. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Found this one a few years ago but her voice is so gorgeous that she gets another mention
Divna - the spooky voice of an angel as beautiful as the Celestial Siren herself - Lisa Gerrard
24. What did you want and get?
A bunch of books on the Izzie wish list at bargain basement prices
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
The Giver
The Upside of Irrationality
And The Barefoot Investor are just some of the booty
25. What did you want and not get?
A bunch of indictments with Donald’s name on them
26. What was your favourite film of this year?
I don’t think I even managed to get to the movies this year
27. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I’m pleading the 5th amendment on this one. AGAIN
28. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
A bunch of indictments bearing the names of Jared Kushner, Michael Pence and Donald J Trump for acts of treason, collusion and money laundering
29. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2017?
Fashion is an alien concept to this slobbish serpent. But we are rather partial to green hats, baggy blouses and long skirts to hide all the blubber
30. What kept you sane?
Sane - Izzie sane? Never ever?
31. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
David Rowe - the political cartoonist. Surely one of the best in the world. Certainly one of the most wicked and twisted of them all.
32. What political issue stirred you the most?
Pleading the 5th Amendment on this one ;)
All of them but especially watching the insidious influence that power has on people and the elaborate justifications conjured to explain the complete trashing of a whole bunch of election promises.
But the standout star of the year just has to be Trumplethinskin
33. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2017:
I can think of two
It is better to be a fountain than a drain
Habits begin as cobwebs and end as cables
I sussed this one out last year but this year was able to take advantage of the power of habit to put a whole bunch of things on autopilot. Using habits as a friend rather than an enemy is an excellent way of getting stuff done with little effort.
36. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
Well actually there is a poem that perfectly sums up the surreal strangeness
The Second Coming
“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
And of course this little gem from last year
Are you, are you, coming to the train,
Led by a man, who wants to break the chains,
Establishment is terrified, they can't control his reign,
Let's meet, this year, on the Trump Train,
It's ever so suitable that they based this song from The Hunger Games
In the story, the song was intended to be a marching anthem by rebels who united against a dictatorial liar who lived at the height of luxury as the people he subjugated through fear, division, and intimidation starved. People sing this song as they march toward almost certain death.
And one last song
The Wheel
