By Slanted Light

Is it really only Wednesday? Eep... Better have a random picture of amazingness.

It's NASA's astronomy picture of today, though I fiddled with it a little - it's slightly cropped and autobrightened, cos it looked very dark on my screen and I wanted light... It also features the Twelve Apostles etc from the Great Ocean Road that was a holiday-ish part my childhood and my recent return to Aus. Mostly I love it for the colour though - I don't know about you, but I'm needing some colour right now! The second week of the year is always a bit blargh I suppose - not quite the optimistic first week, cos you've settled back far enough into life to know that nothing's changed or magic about the new year after all... Yet. *g*

I've still to work out what I'm going to do with 2012, which is odd... or at least my current plans are quiet practical ones, which need expanding into gorgeousness and joy as soon as possible... Has anyone got plans and expectations for 2012? Please inspire me!

Or maybe I should just pull myself together and get on with something! *g*

...and I'm waking up very slowly (and wishing I didn't have to)... I was wandering the web, avoiding the kind of thoughts that would lead to doing anything, but looking for inspiration all the same, and came across this at the Nasa apod site. I'm probably the last person in the world to see it, but might I say wow? *g*

I love seeing the aurora from that angle - how amazing is that?! To think that the whole reason I went to Alaska in the first place was because I'd always wanted to see just a picture of the aurora, and never really did until I saw a photo at an exhibition of nature photographs in London, which set me off... now we can see this!

Love the lightning storms you can see flashing everywhere too - and the patterns of them! So many cities - we're so lit up... And apparently the bright orange line you can see at 3.37 and 4.37 is the border between India and Pakistan, a fence lit up with brilliant floodlights - I had no idea... So then the big city nearby would be... Karachi? No, but it looks like we're flying south this time so... Mumbai, even? Hmmn... Oh, and look at the Nile all lit up, around 2.25! So where do we go from there... it's all at different angles, and I'm getting far too caught up in trying to work it out from googlemaps... *g* There's a pattern of square lights around 3.02 that I'm wondering about - a city, but which one? Why is it square?!

Okay, that's woken me up a bit... isn't it ace! *g*

...or maybe I've just hit the can't-say-I-was-there-this-time-last-week-any-more blues - hence my Huw-Evans-looking-silly icon...

...and something bright and cheerful...


...and something random.

(There should be more random art in the world... *g*)

And a question! What do you do to cheer up a Lacklustre Monday (or Tuesday, or Wednesday, or..? *g*

Now I'm going to go away and do all the things that I should have started doing when I woke up at 5.30am this morning (again - but I like it, cos it means I'm awake!) but just couldn't do...

New icon! *g* (Thank you moth2fic!)

Also - hurrah, cos I've been writing Pros again, which I've not felt like for ages. My theory is that using your brain is like exercise - it begets more using your brain/exercise... *g* So now that I'm feeling all useful and purposeful with my seasonal-second-job, I get to write Pros too! Hurrah! Of course it all ends at around 3pm today, when I have to go home and do seasonal-second-job for the whole weekend, but... in the meantime - There's over 14,000 words of hurrah! (Okay, some I'd written before, but they've been languishing, and now they're not.) Also, have huge-enormous idea for an older-lads novel-y thing which I really want to write, so that's on the cards now too... Oh, and WWII story... WWII story is still there, turning gently over and over in the background... Maybe with newly found want-to-write-now-ness I'll write all three! Hmmn... by the end of the year, what d'you reckon to that as a goal...? And it's kind of nice, cos even if no one else wants to read them, I still want to write them... *vbg*

Right - the lads, to celebrate!


( Started out a weird day, though.. )

( Apparently they've found the longevity gene... )

( Finally they're admitting women may have used weapons in the past... )

( Sea Angels and Sea Devils! )

And now there are just nine minutes before hometime, yeay!

I swear, if I fall over one more thing this morning, spill anything else, get nearly-caught one more time doing a sneaky at the photocopier, I'm going home... Quick - how do you turn a day around?! I need good things! (Although there was no queue at the coffee counter. But my coffee wasn't very nice. And Boss stopped to chat while not-catching me at the photocopier, and the rest of it went cold. Hmmn, not sure the coffee thing was all that successful after that brief first moment... Also she'd keyed in it before I could give her my free-coffee card, so I had to pay... That might be one on the Tory side of my day, come to think of it...)

Speaking of which... *g* Oh, godddddd! Although in a way at least it's kind of interesting, and maybe it'll make the buggers buck up a bit, and start listening to what the electors are actually saying they want/need, rather than trying to tell us that what we want/need is what they're giving us? Or is that just hopeless optimism? Either way, I reckon it's our only hope for a bit of change, because it was really a race between one horse shown from three different camera angles...

How was your voting day? Did you get to vote? Cos my goodness - queues at the polling stations! On the one hand good, surely that must mean a better turnout than usual (or does it just mean that more people left it until the last minute?) I still think voting should be compulsory, as it is in Australia - and if you just don't want to vote for anyone, then spoil your paper/make a "donkey vote", and then we'd know how many people felt that way too. But it'd be a positive outcome at least from that pov...

Right - bad start means a glorious end to the day, doesn't it? I shall be over here working on that... any clues as to how to make it happen gratefully received...

A Wonderful Thing
Oh I know - let's have a Wonderful Thing - NASA's astronomy pic for today. Except they're calling this "the antennae" - stoopid, unpoetic scientists... *headdesk*


I can't decide about this next one - is this a Wonderful Thing - Arborsculpture...? Or is it as bad as forcing kittens to wear dresses and big pink ribbons?

... but how incredibly cool-looking is this from last time? It's from Airspace Rebooted and it's best if you play it full screen - you can even see them having to stop and circle then! *g*

Their website says this is: A visualisation of the northern European airspace returning to use after being closed due to volcanic ash. Due to varying ash density across Europe, the first flights can be seen in some areas on the 18th and by the 20th everywhere is open.

Airspace Rebooted from ItoWorld on Vimeo.