There's nothing worse than having no digital resources to support your DIGITALLY RUN BUSINESS!!! Cranky Camera is now not only not working, but also is now in Greece. Which is fair enough as it's not my camera, but where I was originally sans reliability, I am now sans camera at all. However, I have a bid on a camera tonight so wish me luck. If anyone knows of any low-priced digital cameras that take good micro images, do let me know. In the meantime, I've been keepin the WonkyCat name floating about on Squidoo. On nothing to do with jewellery, but still regarding appearance. If you want to take a look go here.
I did however, manage to convince Cranky Camera to take a picture for the shop which means there is a new banner at the top if you want to take a look. I made it from seed beads. As you can see from the Twitter update on my shop site, it's in the middle of its makeover and therefore the banner is not quite where it should be, or the size it will be when finished. Nor are the backgrounds for the items themselves finished.
I also keep meaning to say that if any fellow kitsch lovers (anything kitsch, not just jewellery), jewellery makers, crafty types (as in creative, no con artists please) or film and book lovers are reading this blog, do invite me as a friend. I'd love to read your stuff and I want to increase my network around these here parts.
Happy Sunday people.

Ok, I knew I should never have started a trusting relationship with anything digital. I blame my uncle for being so modern as to have internet in his home when it first became available in the home environment, thereby making its presence felt right through my formative years. Now it's my biggest enemy, yet my constant companion. You know what else was a constant companion? My Creative Vision M 60 GB. Until it just randomly DIED. It just left me and went to that big MP4 heaven in the sky. I treated it so well, with tender loving care. If electrical music devices had the ability to appreciate beverages and food, I would have wined and dined it. But no. It went into recovery mode one day, and would not be revived. At least it had a sense of irony in its demise. Interestingly, it died just after my warranty ran out. Also interesting that it has it's own software, while the one I am planning to buy as a replacement does not, and rarely seems to crash on any of the owners whose reports of it I've heard. I wouldn't put it past a company to set bugs to appear in some of their products after a certain length of time, after the warranty has run out so that you have to buy a new one. Plus I'm hearing a whole lot of complaints about Creative and iPod. I am buying a new Archos MP4 which has 160GB - that's twice as much space for around the same price that I paid a year ago for my traitorous machine.
Anyway, this technological rant is relevant to the shop. I seem to have gone into technological meltdown - my Creative breaks, then the internet connection develops an attitude problem (which it still has), then my blog account decides it doesn't exist, and then the digital camera completely gives up on responsibilities it never really embraced in the first place. You know, like taking FREAKING DIGITAL PICTURES. That's all it has to do! A camera not taking pictures is like a cat deciding not to sleep, eat or smirk. If they don't do that, they barely exist! They are just a shell! (Or a fur casing really. Or a plastic casing depending on whether we're talking cameras or metaphorical cats here. I've lost track).
Anyway, Digital Camera has joined the digital army that has declared war on me for no reason, so no developments can be made to the shop for now. Except that I'll have a tonne of jewellery to show when I get my hands on another photograph demon (soon, hopefully) and also a new shop logo - it's still Wonky Cat's head but oh so different. I made it today, that's all I'll say.
Hope you are all well.

Yes, I know I know, I'm a bloody dreadful blogger but first there was a (frankly revolting) virus, and then I started my new job in a creche full of demented and very dramatic children so I've not been in the mood to blog about anything, not even buttons or jumprings. Anyway, hopefully I'll be back on track with the shop etc very soon. Talking of buttons, there are a number of button-related items coming to the shop soon. I love buttons but not as much as these dudes.

They really bloody love buttons, don't they? I mean really bloody love them.

Yeurgh, what a dose that was. Nasty flu, even worse getting it in summer. Oh well.
Still tired, so just a quick update. I started a shop for surplus goodies here at Tabby's (named after the real wonky cat who you saw in a previous post looking a bit peeved with me after walking into a mirror). I also hastily made a video which you can see in all its shoddy quality. I seriously spent about 20 minutes on it and it is truly shoddy, but I haven't the energy to improve it. If you are wondering what the music on it is, it's one of the few non-Yann Tiersen tracks from the Amelie soundtrack, and it is an old song called Guilty. Apparently that version was by Al Bowlly but I can't confirm that as there are several recorded versions of the song. Sounds like him though.
Anyway, should be more updates soon. Hope you're all having a nice sunny summer.

Ok, that's it. I have to vent. Every year, I say "It sucks this year", which is sort of an obvious statement. It never gets good till halfway through. But it is the one reality show I watch avidly, and have remained loyal too. Despite it's decline in quality, which is especially noticeable this year. Here starteth the rant.

5 Reasons Why It Is Dreadful This Year

5. The lack of interesting personalities. Every single intro video as the contestants went in this year was exactly the same as the last. Every single one of them did one of the following - said they weren't afraid to say what they think, weren't afraid to have a fight, would strip, thought themselves mighty sexy and better looking than anyone else who could possible enter the house, or said that they were definitely clever/talented/an unmitigated genius. There appear to be only two categories of idiot this year - Bully and Whiner. Usually, there are at least four categories, some of which overlap. I haven't provided a category in which Kathreya can reside - I don't believe that woman even realises where she actually is. She does semi-fit the Whiner category though, but you can't help but love her. All that Cookie Joy.
And don't start me on Dale. His general expression (except if smiling, when he literally has the face of James Marsden), is that of a cat when they get distracted by something you can't see, and they just kind of stare off wide-eyed into the distance with the tip of their tongue hanging gormlessly out of their mouth. Luke is a two-faced little moron, and Mikey (admittedly because he has to adjust his levels according to where he thinks someone is standing) cannot seem to control THE VOLUME of his VOIIICCCEEE.
4.The lack of psychological vetting before allowing complete SOCIOPATHS to enter the house. I don't believe a word of the baloney (that's right, I said baloney sir) that the spokespeople feed the public - they only get the contestants analysed to see who is the craziest so they can send the nutters in and provide drama. How else could some like Alex get past the testing if it were the case that they profiled them in order to weed out those unsuitable for the environment? The woman is a seriously mentally unstable woman. The worst thing is that she genuinely does not understand what was wrong with anything she said or did. I've never found a housemate so genuinely frightening to watch before. Creepy, yes. Frightening, no. And as for Dennis (aka. Perez Hilton). He should be forced to go live with camels for the rest of his life. See how he likes being spat on.
3. The injustice. What exactly is Mo supposed to have done? I'm sure he is irritating to live with, but he is a nice guy and not aggressive or rude. Yet he gets villified and bullied, and according to the housemates 'overreacted' to having his face spat in - yet Jen gets nothing but sympathy when she coats the world in a layer of snot as she wails about her ruined painting. "You wouldn't do that to a Monet!" she screams. Aww poor wubby baby, did the nasty man ruin your painting? It looked better after he defaced it, quite frankly. That girl is a prime example of an insecure, spoilt little brat with no perspective on anything. For some reason, everyone seems happy to indulge her whinging, but Kathreya dares to get upset at the tension in the house and she's called childish. Yes, she is, but she has better heart than Jen.
2. The complete lack of genuinely fantastic senses of humour. This has been a problem for years now. They go for maximum drama, no humour. What happened to the Anna Nolans of Year One (a year which they should use as the template for next year - when are they going to go back to basics, like they always promise?), or the Brian Dowlings? (Apparently, Irish contestants are only allowed be funny if they're gay too, and if they are gay that is all that is remembered about them, not their humour. Nice to know the press treats everyone equally isn't it?). And what about funny Big Brother? There is one particular Big Brother that is particularly hilarious. Remember Anthony suggested that the famous horse Big Bro was thinking of was "Sandy, the horse from Dogtanian" and there was a long pause before BB sarcastically replied, "No, Anthony. The horse BB is thinking of is not 'Sandy, the horse from Dogtanian'. Poor, Anthony. Poor. GET OUT".

1. The demise of Big Brother's Little Brother. Yeah... this is a true tragedy. I was going to include Big Mouth here too but it's picking up a bit. But BBLB....the new presenters... WHAT THE F**%#NG FU*K??!! George and Zezi? In the words of that hysterical pipecleaner Nikki - who ARE they?!!! How the flippin' HELL did the producers deem them in any way suitable to replace Dermot O'Leary, King of Yummy, and King of Funny. George looks insulted by everything anyone says ever, and doesn't react to anything the guests say. He just kind of looks like he thinks he is too cool to be there. His surname is LAMB for god's sake, and he has a random streak of dyed grey hair on his floppy indieboy fringe. He's not too cool for anything. And Zezi. She's like a horror morph of Chuckie and Shirley Temple. And her presenting method is to stare blankly at the camera until some random words pop into her head, and then just... say them. And when she is interviewing guests, she jumps every few minutes when she realises there is someone there speaking besides herself. She doesn't hear a word they say, interrupts before they finish answering, and then responds with completely unrelated questions. And the clothes... oh the clothes. It's easy enough to accept George's strange pretentious indie rockband/funky grandad look. But Zezi... it's like reliving the hideous disappointment you feel at the end of Pretty In Pink, when Molly Ringwald butchers a perfectly lovely pink prom dress into a Queen Elizabeth special...but EVERYDAY.

As you can see in the FAQ of the Wonky Cat shop, Wonky Cat was originally a stuffed toy I made for my friend's birthday, but I have my own real life wonky cat called Tabitha. She has half a tail (earning her the title 'Half-Manx Cat'), and an extremely superior attitude. That does not count the times when she will suddenly have a mad half hour and tear around the house, somehow navigating corners at 60 miles an hour. She has taken to drinking water more regularly now, but only in a bowl in my room, which means paws knocking at my bedroom door at midnight. She doesn't even look at me when she walks in, she just struts to the dish, laps at the water and then walks straight back out again without a backwards glance. As with most cats, she deals with embarrassment by acting like I'm the loser. As evidenced by the events of yesterday.

The moment of embarrassment - she walks slowly but definitely headfirst into my mirror.

This is Tabs standing at the door pretending that it didn't just happen.

Tabby's 'cat caught in headlights' look.

A rather arty picture of my cat.

Her next tactic is just to pretend I am not there.

But she totally knows I'm still behind her.

And here, she definitely knows I'm there. (Strangely, as I type this, I heard Tabby's paws on the door and she is now drinking her water )

I love how cats use their paws - it's always cute.

And oddly, here she is entering...the bathroom

I gave this post a title which has some rather blatant innuendo in it because any time I mention baking buns, my family laughs. This is because what they hear when I say the word 'buns' is the American word for 'bottom', or if you're French 'derriere'. The laugh is louder if I specify that they are 'little buns'.
Anyway, once again (due to my ineptitude with the digital camera), what should be an innocent and cheerful subject matter, has instead taken on a rather sinister tone complete with shadows and looming perspective. I took these pictures as part of a How To lens for Squidoo. But I thought I would share the best of them here seeing as they didn't fulfill their spongey destiny, instead ending up in the bin after a definite lack of interest from the household.

These are the mini buns freshly out of the oven. (See? You can't help reading that as some sort of filthy slang innuendo now can you?)

This is the tray of buns and decorating material that I needed in order to ice them in my room. The reason I insisted on decorating them in my room? Big Brother was on.

This is the exact moment I got sick of fiddling around with sugar sequins and having hands caked in royal icing, and decided to chuck it all in.

In case you were wondering what the striped things underneath the tray in the second picture were, they're my feet. Look at my lovely stripey socks!

I tried to light the finished buns (ie. the ones I bothered doing) with a lamp light instead of using the camera flash, because the light bouncing off the white icing was making them look positively holy. Instead, I managed to make them look like they were being persecuted by the FBI.

Here's a better picture of them. Another strange aspect of this baking experience is the overriding ambience of yuletide - it's June! Well, I had some decorations I got on sale in January and they only had a month left to be used.

Just a close up of some of the ones from the picture above.

I seem to be the only person so far who see this, but I am convinced that this bun has a strong resemblance to Papa Lazarou.

Pity it was so dark by the time I was taking this photograph because they are my favourite designs. White and blue always makes a lovely combination, and they looked even cuter sitting in my Hello Kitty bento box.

Hurrah!! Look what I found in a second hand shop - an original vinyl record of the Mary Poppins soundtrack, a childhood favourite along with the film to which it belongs. It's in good condition and look at the pretty cover! Vintage-y goodness.