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...
Invitation
party anniversary tranniefesto
This weblog will be four years old in a month1. I've got a small treat waiting to share on that day, but I thought I'd see if anybody would be up for helping me celebrate by getting absolutely shit-faced having a quiet drink in a pub somewhere.
I'm mentioning this so early, because it's always impossible to arrange stuff on an ad hoc basis, and because I need to pick a city to be in. The 7th of February is a Tuesday — so I'll be in Leeds. But Manchester is an option I guess.
Anyway, just wondered if there would be any interest in having a drink. And if so, where's best?
1 Yes, I know tranniefesto.co.uk is only a year old, but my weblog goes back further than that, to when I had siobhansplace.co.uk. And I know the archives start at 01-01-2002, but that was a bit of retroactive continuity — at some point I changed the date of the first entry, but I can't remember why. siobhansplace.co.uk was registered on 07-02-2002, I uploaded the site that evening, and the diary was part of the upload — allbeit hand-coded and (in retrospect) a little embarassing to read.
Trivial Memories
*brrrring! brrrring!* ... "Hello?" ... "Hi Siobhan, it's L" ... "Hiya hon" ... "Wanna come round to our house tonight, drink copious amounts of wine, and play Trivial Pursuit?" ... "You had me long before the 'and play'"
Could be an interesting evening 
I'm, for some unknown reason, going through a "drinking makes me angry" phase, and I'm one of the most obnoxiosly competitive Trivial Pursuit players in the world, so I'm going to have to find some way of restraining my instincts this evening, or I'll be getting up the backs of even more friends 
I dunno what it is about Trivial Pursuit. The only game that gets me even slightly as close to boiling point as it, is Risk — and even then, I know some people (just the one) who take Risk so seriously that it becomes far too lifelike.
Once, back in the early nineties, I was staying with my then-girlfriend's Mum at Christmas. It was a lovely time — champagne breakfasts and the like — marred only by one particular event.
We went round to her cousin's house one evening, for a family get-together. Her, her mother, her aunt and uncle, and her grandmother (and me, bviously) all huddled round a table pushing pieces of pie around a board.
We were pink, I think.
As the evening wore on, and I got a tad tipsy, her uncle spotted this, and decided it would be fun to see if he could wind me up ... which he managed — quite spectacularly to achieve.
The whole game descended into a slanging match between me and him — both of us determined to beat the other — and didn't exactly go down as one of my best "Meet The Family" occasions of all time
...
The choice of which colour to play has always been a bit of a stickler hasn't it? More so in Ireland, where you mark yourself out as being from one side or the other if you choose orange or green.
In the past — when I was young — I'm ashamed to admit that whenever I used to play, I was adamant that I wasn't going to be pink. Pink is for those poofs isn't it?
Funny how times change.
...
I once spent an afternoon reading through as many questions as I could — not because I was trying to learn the answers, but because I'd heard an urban myth that there was a card in the pack somewhere that asked "What does a man with Diphallic Terrata have two of?"
I'm paraphrasing from memory there, but I'd still like to know if that one is true or not.
...
Two questions that I know are in there, go like this:
"What does a man do standing up, a woman do sitting down, and a dog do on three legs?"
"What are the inhabitants of Lesbos known as?"
...
Tonight's game, apparently, is one of those new-fangled DVD ones. I'm not sure how I feel about this — what with me hating all forms of technology and whatnot — but we'll see how it goes.
Apparently, one of the categories is "Gossip" — so this'll be the Heat Magazine Edition, rather than the Genus 
How we used to live
(via flickr.com/people/si08han) 
Found under a carpet at a friend's house. As full of irrelevent bollocks then as it is now.
We always call the playing pieces "cheeses" rather than "pies".
True story. At Blackpool all the girocheques, order books and what have you for paying benefit to residents in Northern Ireland are produced. In the good old days of magnetic tape, the Northern Ireland tapes were coloured green.
Then The Minister came to visit and played merry hell.
So, they tried to change them to as inoccuous a colour as possible. They chose orange....
Then The Minister came to visit again.....
They were changed to yellow soon after.
Right, first things first...
Count me in Siobhan! I've checked my diary and I'm free that day, in fact free that month as things currently stand 
->.
Leeds is best for me, but can probably do Manc if thats how things work out.
On the providing alternative sources to Transformations issue, I'm not convinced I'm afraid. The alternatives are already there, the problem as far as I see it is that Transformations targets newbies who don't know where to look, or don't have the confidence to use these other outlets (like the high street). So I'm not sure another scheme/web site would make any difference. And surely we want to be moving away from the niche ghetto shops (unless we're after specialist products such as boobs or gaffs) and moving towards the main stream?
I've always had a positive reaction when buying things on the high street, the real problem I've had to deal with though is in overcoming my own fears and embarrassment. What I'm trying to say is we should work from the assumption that shops are inherently trannie friendly, the challenge is to change our attitudes not those of the shop managers.
I warn ye, those DVD Trivial Pursuits are godawful. Nothing like the real game, and mostly the game system is confusing as hell, and the presenter (On the one I was forced to endure, "Let Loose" he was smug, thin and about as enjoyable as herpes). Also since there's no board you only get to answer seven questions.
Nowhere near as fun as genus, and despite never answering a question right in the edition, I'd rather the classic. Don't get your hopes up.
Sounds like a fun evening. I know a good pub for a drink, but oh bugger youre a bit far away, I'll have a couple for you anyway.
Trivial pursuits fun even though I totally suck at it.
As for pink well that and purples are my favourite shades, so bleh!!!
Also... isn't that date roughly about nearly vaguely about roughly 12 days before your birthday? (and only 5 days before mine )
Difficult for me to make it oop north on a Tuesday, but if you made it a weekend and a combo birthday-blog celebration I could be tempted. 
C's Socks Scare Me
(via flickr.com/people/si08han)
There is something unholy and wrong about socks with toes
May be we should play Risk instead — Claire should be up for it
JoH
There Has To Be A Pun In Here Somewhere
(via flickr.com/people/si08han)
"TV Games™ bought to you by Mattel. An interactive tranny test.
Experience awe, excitement and amazement whilst trying to pass in a number of real life situations whilst fending off unwanted admirers, sniggering teenage girls and watch out for being pulled over by PC Plod whilst driving en femme."
Anyone remember Track & Field®?? An old computer game back in the 80's which covered various running and jumping sports and which required the player to thrash out a number of keys on the keyboard to perform the running and jumping actions??? I'm sure there must be a similar scope within TV Games™
Steph Jones
By the way, another thing to google bomb you could do is to include the link in your signature in any kind of forum you go to frequently.
That does give a lot of different content and such, so i think it could help the link number and probably the relevance too... I don't really know how does Google works.
(btw, you should add "google" to the spellchecker word list)
At the party
(via flickr.com/people/si08han)
Hi Siobhan,
I wish I could come, but Manchester/Leeds is a long way for me and wifey would not necesarily be on-message.
Susan
Susan
Cannae make it I am afraid... we fly out on the 8th Feb to go skiing....
And yes, socks with toes freak me out too... it's just not natural I tell you.
I think socks with toes are funny. Specially those with psychedelic colours on them. It's like drugs, minus the fun.
yeah socks with toes are kinda odd. but cool at the same time.
Stephanie Rowe
I love toe socks...each of your toes has a home and it's nice...
lol very sexy
I love Risk more than I love dressing up as a girlie!!! Alright perhaps not more than but I really, really love Risk. Haven't played for years though. I've got a really old set, with wooden pieces somewhere. I think it's got names like 'Siam' on it! If you arrange a Risk night, please let me know...
Kath Adams
"I've always had a positive reaction when buying things on the high street, the real problem I've had to deal with though is in overcoming my own fears and embarrassment. What I'm trying to say is we should work from the assumption that shops are inherently trannie friendly, the challenge is to change our attitudes not those of the shop managers." — I agree Karol, but there are trannies out there for whom a little sign in the window would give them the confidence to go in and shop "knowing" the reaction will be friendly and helpful.
Also, I agree with Siobhan that such a scheme would be best run by UK Angels (UKA), and therefore the logo would be better as UKA and not TF. After all, UKA is a recognised brand and any potential retail outlet could be pointed to an established and thriving site. Then all that would need to be done would be to set-up said database. What do you think Jo?
May be, also, trannies could bring the scheme to the attention of retail outlets — obviously those that would be prepared to get involved may not want to canvass in their own towns, but whilst visiting another town... these ideas need to be developed!
Can't make it up there around that time due to previous commitments and sister's birthday, but let me know in advance when you next come down to London.
I know that this is on about yesterday still, but I have to say that Rachel's idea hs some merit! I like it a lot and think it should be put to some use. Not that we shouldn't continue to try to removed said store from the #1 Google spot as well.
I would think that (with her permission and acceptance) Joanna would be a good person to at least start the ball rolling if for no other reason than because she is nominally incharge of an official group of trannies. She has the statistics on enrollment and proving to stores that there are enough of us to make putting a TF sticker in the window is important. Also, who wouldn't want a big banner out front of every store they pass telling them whether they are cool or not rather than having to feel it out.
The best part is that this idea displays the trannie diversity that you have so eloquently talked about already Siobhan. Someone (you perhaps?!) could code the website and make it look really good, Jo could pull in her statistics, and we could all link to the site. There are enough of us in the US that we could get it going over here and so on.
Plus we could continually link "transvestite" to Wiki on said site helping our campaign to knock off Transformation!