Tuesday, 21st June, 2005

Far too Excited For My Own Good

Hey, want a little countdown timer for your own website? Copy the code below and paste it into your own page, and I'll try and remember to update the graphic at midnight each night

<a href="http://www.sparkle.org.uk/">
<img src="http://www.tranniefesto.co.uk/image/sparkle_white.gif">
</a>

Or, if you have a dark background...

<a href="http://www.sparkle.org.uk/">
<img src="http://www.tranniefesto.co.uk/image/sparkle_black.gif">
</a>

...

Anyway...

I think I've worked out what my plan for the weekend is During Saturday morning, I'll just be milling around the Village, in drab, having the odd cup of coffee and seeing if anyone's about. I remember from years ago, the first time I went to SCC there was very much the sense that "this is chance to dress as a laydee all-day everyday", but within a few hours I was losing the will.

I suppose it would be different if I never got the chance to dress at home much. But I do, so I won't.

I guess also, I've always had a thing about the transformation aspect of dressing, and for me anyway, I inda figure there's no point in just turning up as a girl if no-one's seen you as a boy first.

If that makes any sense

Whatever. Saturday morning = Manchester Gay Village in drab.

Saturday afternoon however = different story.

Because I'm in the fashion show, I'm going to be in the Manhattan Bar from about 2/3pm-ish. I'll probably be in a bit of a flap right up until the first show at 4.30pm, but after that I'll have a couple of hours to chill before the next show at 8pm.

During those couple of hours though (and providing the bar is open), I don't really think I'll get a chance to wander about, so I'm planning on just staying in the Manhattan.

(This is a hint BTW — if anyone would like to pop along and say hello in the evening, that's where I'll be. Kathie should be there too I think)

Then, after the last show, I'll be getting changed and hitting the clubs.

I was rather hoping, last night, that sending as inquisitive email to The Angels would act as some sort of Public Service Announcement BTW. I figured that there's a lot of info on the Sparkle website about what clubs are open, but not too much about what knd of music they're planning on.

GWRB will be doing a "chilled out theme", Club Angelic will be "funky" apparently, but I don't know anything about TransMISSION or Tootsies.

So I was rather hoping that some helpful and informed person would post an email so that we could all work out which club we wanted to go to based on the music.

I wasn't expecting someone to recommend Napoleons to me FFS. I mean, *pfft*. I can do Naps any time I like thankyouverymuch. No offence intended to the place, but I seem to end up there every time I go to the Village (I'm not complaining BTW), and this is a special night.

I wanna wave my arms around in Via Fosse, lost in my own little world of deep trance, not sit with my back to a mirror in a complicated trannie-face-off-I'm-prettier-than-you-handbag-session.

Basically, I'm thinking I'm going to be at Angelic. But I suppose that depends on who I'm with — ie. whether I can meet up with the (presumably) already-drunk Ms Envérité or not

Christmas Comes Early

But that's not the only reason I'm excited today, and it's certainly not the reason I woke up at 6am and haven't been able to get back to sleep.

Oh no

You see, at some point today, I truly truly feel that my quest for The Right Mobile Phone For Right Now will be at an end.

I got my current Panasonic X70 just over a year ago, and despite it being a very pretty thing, I've hated it. Stupid interface, crappy camera, non-existent proper email support...

And so yesterday, after what feels like a ton of research and countless wild-goose-chases (like almost going for the Nokia 3230 until a rather frustrated blog post by Miss K put me off, and getting all excited by the Motorola V3 until they (a) didn't have one in stock, and (b) would have charged me £60 for the thing), I finally made a bloody decision and called Orange

All I've wanted, really, is a phone with a fab camera, proper POP and IMAP email support, and one that syncs sensibly and seamlessly with my laptop. Is that too much to ask?

Apparently not

I'm sure someone told me that Sony Ericsson phones are a bitch to use, but everything I've read about this one is glowing. Plus it's got a 2 Megapixel camera, plus it's got IMAP support, and (discovered through a bit of Googling) even though Apple don't support it yet (although apparently they're planning to), you can hack Mac OSX Tiger to get it to work

And it's coming today w00t!

I got all excited a moment ago when I heard a knock at the door, and scrabbled round the bedroom trying to find a pair of trousers (I blog in my pants). But it was only the Postman bringing me some new cartridges for my printer (Which is exciting enough really).

As soon as I post this, I'll be spending the rest of the morning sitting by the door waiting for a Parcel Force van And then, I'll probably spend the next four hours (or however long it takes) sitting watching the charger do its stuff.

Because I am that sad

(Or alternatively, I could do the sensible thing of trying to rehash the script I wrote that pulls images from my Flickr photostream and posts them here. Couldn't I?)

Um, yeah You kinda got me there. Funnily enough, that's exactly what Kathie said to me as well.

Um. Nope — you're absolutely right. The only thing I can offer as a defence is that after having spent all that time faffing around with make-up and trawling through all the pictures I took, I was desperate to share them.

But you're right. I went against my own thing.

I don't think the boy -> girl shots are questionable though, just the me in my skimpies ones. Think yourselves lucky though, that I didn't post the other pictures I took that day

Bored

You know how when people on the phone say things like "It'll arrive any time between 9am and 5pm" right? Well, you don't actually think they mean that do you? That usually means "It'll arrive at about 10am, just when you've nipped out to the shop".

But not today. Not by 4pm anyway.

Damm you Orange. I'm starting to think you've forgotten about me

[...]

[...]

(That's the international blog-symbol for "time passing" by the way )

4.53pm Close or what! Time to play with New Toy™

Ha! That's how I chose my last one

Um, Selina, excuse me while I go read the man pages for crontab OK? And learn how to set things to happen at midnight rather than every hour What's that they say about "a little knowledge"? Something about "dangerous" I think...

I have to point out here, that I don't mind Napoleans — it's just I can't quite see myself in there on Saturday, know what I mean?

Oh, and yeah Rachel, of course I'll be showing it off at Sparkle I'm currently setting the thing up (got the email working, so expect a flood of photographs), and as soon as Jonas releases version 3.0 of Sailing Clicker, I'll be dancing round the house controlling iTunes and watching DVDs and stuff like that

(That hack I mentioned above, incidently, worked a charm — all iSynced up and ready )