Hello 
I'm Siobhan Curran/Kisa Naumova, and this is my weblog. I tend to write about stuff like crossdressing, Macs, code, cats, wine and Second Life, but in general it's just an ongoing conversation about all sorts of stuff. If you'd like to know a little bit more about what this all is, I recommend starting on this page which has a little bit of info on who I am, and what I'm trying to do — or you could dive into my five years worth of archives if you like.
Otherwise, feel free to close this box and explore...
Wish List
I hate banks. Banks suck. Can somebody please explain to me why in this day and age of instant electronic communication, it takes five days for cheques to clear? Eh? Eh?
Pah.
Sorry 
One of the things I got for Christmas was some money, and even though I'm being all Grown Up And Sensible™ and squirreling some of it away in savings (yeah, I know — practically adult me 
), I figured I could probably do with one little treat. You know, just to lift the dull nasty air of depression that winter brings.
I was watching telly a short while ago, and in between my usual shouty-ranting at the screen at the imbecility of some of the adverts, I spotted one from Ebay and decided to interrupt my 24-hour Simpsons-fest with a bit of browsing for dresses
Regular readers will no doubt (maybe) recall my little obsession with the wedding-dress shop in Lancaster — the one that regularly features mammoth meringues in its shop window — meringues that somehow click with the part of my brain that continues to delude itself into thinking that I'm a 18-year-old-princess (rather than a nearly 34-year-old-stubbly-bloke). The awful truth is that for the past few months, the dress on display has been a little, well, normal. Not the sort of thing to make me nearly crash my car into crossing pedestrians outside the back end of Lancaster Market.
But look at that one eh? On Ebay, for about £100.
BTW. Of course I'm not linking to it. The second that cheque clears in my account (tomorrow, I think) I'm buying it. And I'd be a very stupid transvestite indeed if I was to let anyone else know where it was 
Two Things About Television
Thing One: I've been talking to Jon recently about ways to cobble a few Apple products together to create the perfect Home Media system. Front Row is a truly lovely thing indeed (think the iPod interface, but for your Mac) and I figure it would be a piece of cake to symlink your ~/Movies folder to wherever your Elgato EyeTV box saves its files to make a pretty fab home-video-library of Stuff.
You could even, I suppose, use those qt_export scripts that I shared a wee while back to automatically squish the MPEG files into yummy h.264 ones...
But I digress
There is a vague little rumour circulating at the moment, that Apple are about to launch some kind of Home Media Centre (Thing). Granted, rumours about new Apple products aren't worth much (remember the iPhone fenzy?) but personally, I'm holding out until at least the rumour's been proved wrong.
Then I might stump out for a projector as well as a few bits and pieces and turn my house into a cinema 
Thing Two: Turning my house into a cinema would be a Bad Thing™. A long time ago, I had a monster TV in my living room (which, on a weblog such as this, could have a compeltely different meaning).
Actually, having made that little obvious gag, saying things like "I had a 32-inch TV downstairs" is just pandering to innuendo, isn't it?
Whatever. I recall spending an entire summer lying flat on my back, watching shite on it. I vowed to myself that I'd never waste time like that again, and got rid of the thing. And ever since, I've watched a lot less telly.
Whether or not I've actually been more productive as a result, well, that's kinda up for debate.
Yesterday though, in my post-party-hangover recovery attempts (booze works kids!), I hoisted the shitty little portable that I keep in an inaccessible spot down to beside the sofa. And ever since, I've been lying there watching The Simpsons.
I can't let myself get back into that kind of routine again. Seriously — today, this morning, I was attacking some code, when I thought I'd take a break about midday to see what was on.
When I looked up, it was 7pm and I was already drunk.
The only things I've learnt today are as follows:
If you want to kill a big scarey demon that used to be the Mayor of Sunnydale, you need to lure him into a library and blow him up with explosives.
The Borg Queen is a bit icky.
Lisa Simpson will become President.
You can get a mini-tramapoline from Sainsburys for £19.99
£19.99?? Bargain! I'm off!
Buy two!
Bit late I know, but have a Happy New Year. And if you get that dress it'll be a good start.
The dress is definitely fab. Go get it girl. As soon as possible.
On the TV note....yes....the Borg Queen is a bit icky. But not as icky as the Simpsons.
Hey! I actually fancied the Borg queen......
An anonymous coward
Didn't mean to be anonymous.......
An anonymous coward
I'd buy a bigger telly if there was anything I liked on, but there doesn't seem any point in watching rubbish bigger.
looby
OK I found the dress on ebay.. whats it woth NOT to bid on it !! LOL
Kylie
I was around my friend Shannon's flat on Jan 1st and she's got one of those snazzy iMac G5s, which pretty much does all the things you were saying. The TV tuner is a little fiddly because it's an add-on and not integrated into Front Row properly, but she can pretty much do everything you were saying. Including recording multiple live TV shows for viewing later.
Almost tempted me to buy a mac mini and have a play.
Almost. I just need a bit of impetus.
I reckon £400 cash-in-hand would push me over the edge! 
Hey.. I always make the Television Transvestite joke. I feel cheated.
Having a system like that to watch normal TV (teh simpsons et al)???
Personally, i'd buy a 2+ mbps connection to download all kinds of random movies off the net to watch it on a big screen. That would be neat.
Btw, i don't know how much you'd be interested, but i made a flickr account and am link-whoring it. Because i'm narcissistic.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/omgsitszaidyohnoes/ (yay! i have an icon now!)
Well. That thing got weird. Icon is here now -->
Cobbled together, yeah, that's what mine is. Just blogged about it, so if you wanna you can go check it out in all it's rats-nest-of-cables goodness. emilygrae.blogspot.com It uses a mini and at the moment it's hooked to my way too small monitor and not the tv, but if Apple comes out with a MiniDVR type, that'll fix that. And if they don't, I'll probably get another mini and hook it to the tv anyways... I'd prefer Apple to go the dvr route though, make it an elegant solution, the way they do...
lol The Simpsons now thats tragic, that would drive me to drink to.
The dress is definitley you, get it at all costs