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...
Apple-Shift-S
A small snapshot of what's going on right now.
Next week, because all of my colleagues are jetting off to New York with a pack of art-hungry students in tow, it's fallen to me to 'hold the fort' while they're away. As a result, I'm going to be in Leeds for five days — something I don't think I've done before 
M is happy, because it means there'll be someone to look after Frank (her cat) while she's away — I'm going to have to get someone to feed Biscuit and Tish though.
I'm rather looking forward to it, to be honest — it'll give me a chance to 'play' at living in Leeds a bit, even though it's Harrogate.
On a purely practical level though, it'll give me a chance to take every single bit of clothing I've got and shove it through the wash. Sometimes (if I'm honest), I don't always wash everything — the prospect of watching enormous petticoats spinning around the dryer in full view of everyone in the local launderette doesn't exactly tie-in with my intent to not be quite so out in my local neighbourhood.
...
On Tuesday, I've got an interview
It's weird actually — being interviewed for a job that you're already doing. You may recall me mentioning "extra hours" a while back, and that's what this is for. I've been waiting quite a while for all this to get formalised, and the frustrations of doing unrecognised work has been getting to me a bit recently — or, more to the point, the frustration's been in the length of time it's all taken to be processed.
On the plus side though, I did hear the magic word when I was asking about salary and stuff...
"Backdated" 
...
Not sure if I mentioned it out loud (except on Twitter), but one of my students accidentally stumbled here the other day. The prospect had first dawned on me while I was checking out Kisa's Flickr stream, and I noticed he'd left a comment. I've been quite blasé about linking from Graham to Kisa to Siobhan, and it suddenly dawned on me that I've blatantly said "I am Siobhan Curran" on Kisa's profile.
"How did you find Kisa?", I asked the following day.
"I was searching Flickr for you."
"How far did you go?"
"Well, I found you photos, and your Second Life photos."
"Uhuh?"
"And the other account."
"And the blog?"
"Yup, that too."
I'm probably being too melodramatic here — that soounds like an OMG OMG OMG I'M OUTED! moment, when in fact it was more of a that's interesting, now I can talk about what I do online without worrying about stuff moment.
...
While I was rejigging my entire archives the other day, it struck me how crappy and shitty my 'about' page was. As a 'point of entry', it didn't really function in the way I wanted it to — too much stuff just plonked on it without proper thought.
So I've rejigged it as well.
(By "rejigged", I mean "taken off the blog-tech stuff, and moved the blogroll to the top right)
...
One final little thing — I'm really rather enjoying Ugly Betty
"Backdated"
Sounds great doesn't it? I was promised that mythical entity when they finally got around to processing my pay rise.
But lo, the company decided to change it's mind so I a) didn't get it and b) got less of a rise than I had been expecting.
Bastards
Erm, that last word was supposed to be in bold. 
It is an '*' for bold isn't it?
Nope — double astericks or underscores for bold
...the prospect of watching enormous petticoats spinning around the dryer in full view of everyone in the local launderette doesn't exactly tie-in with my intent to not be quite so out in my local neighbourhood.
Why would anyone necessarily think they're yours, rather than those of a hypothetical gf?
BTW, have you seen the iPhone Shuffle?
Why would anyone necessarily think they're yours
Good point, however:
No woman in her right mind would wear some of the crap I own
It's not really important what other people think sometimes — rather what I think other people think
iPhone Shuffle
Ha! Very good 
I'd actually rather like one of those 
"It's not really important what other people think sometimes — rather what I think other people think"
Reminds me of a phrase some wag used to blag free entry to a gig... "Don't you know who I think I am", he said.
Was that you or me?
I always got a service wash, in dump, collect pay — out and voila — easy as !!!!
Anyway — use that backdated pay rise and get a washing machine and dryer of your own.
Although dont let me use it — they die for me .....
Katie
neither — but its a good one, innit!
Annoying Things That My EyeTV Does (1)
So you've set your magical box to record the simply marvelous Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls (Film 4, right now), but to kill time beforehand you figure you'll watch The Usual Suspects — because hey, it's got a damm good twist at the end.
And even though you've watched The Usual Suspects a gazillion times before on Film 4, you figure "What the hell?".
But during The Usual Suspects, you get up every once in a while to go pee (or something), so you pause it a few times — because pausing TV is the singularly greatest achievement of Man in the twenty-first century.
And you're sat there — slightly out of sync with the live stream, watching The Usual Suspects as Verbal is hobbling away from the police station, waiting for the most glorious moment in film for several years, when your beloved PVR chirpily pops up and starts showing you the tail-end of the credits, because it's flipped into record-mode.
Dammit. I was watching that
-rw-rw-rw-
The permissions of the beast
Sorry. Becky 
sparked a thought in my head
Actually, credit where it's due, it was probably Lynn's comment about God being an IT contractor that sparked that particular thought.
"-rw-rw-rw-"! That made me laugh far more than it should have done!
Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls
Speaking of Russ Mayer, something got overlooked in all the hullabaloo over the iPhone the other night:
Apple also announced that it has developed chips that can store and play music inside women's breasts. This is considered to be a major breakthrough because women are always complaining about men just staring at their breasts and not listening to them. Ba-doom — tish
-rw-rw-rw-
Is that like:
29A — The Hexidecimal of the Beast.
0.0015015015015015015015015015015015 — the inverse of the Beast.
0-900-666-0666: Live Beasts! One-on-one pacts! Call Now! Only £6.66/minute. Over (6+6+6) only Please.
£665.95 — The retail price of the Beast.
333 — Eric the Half a Beast.
You don't have dual tuners?
665 runner up to the beast
emilygrae
616, the number that the pedant points out is ACTUALLY the Number of the Beast
Yes yes, we all saw that episode of QI 
Ugly Betty! Yes. I've just started watching a bit. I didn't pick it up at first for fear of having another show I HAD to watch. But I've seen scattered episodes now and I like every one. I really like their weird offices too!