Yay for memes. While I wait for the omnivore's 100 to unbreak, here is the sweet 100, courtesy of Cakespy.com. I have bolded everything I've tried, and have included british names in italic if relevant.

1. Red Velvet Cake
2. Princess Torte No British version. Can easily be found in various bakeries round London, however.
3. Whoopie Pie
4. Apple Pie either topped or baked with sharp cheddar
5. Beignet This one is difficult to define - one could argue that any fried doughnut comes under this umbrella. I say not. Woo!
6. Baklava Nom. Nom.
7. Black and white cookie
8. Seven Layer Bar (also known as the Magic Bar or Hello Dolly bars) Nom. Nom. Nom. Follow the recipe.
9. Fried Fruit pie (sometimes called hand pies) For some reason, that is what we get when we ask for an Apple Pie in a McDonalds in this dear country. Not that I'm complaining.
10. Kringle These are Danish. And nom.
11. Just-fried (still hot) doughnut Don't settle for those who fry, bag then spend a few hours selling the bags. These vans seem to be disappearing as I get older. And I'm not even old!
12. Scone with clotted cream Homemade scones a must.
13. Betty, Grunt, Slump, Buckle or Pandowdy These look very simple to make. Will get round to it when I can. Hopefully with photos.
14. Halvah
15. Macarons
16. Banana pudding with nilla wafers The pudding, yes. Need to go abroad to get the wafers (which do not look like wafers, heh) though.
17. Bubble tea (with tapioca "pearls") This is intriging, and sounds very odd. Definately a candidiate to try!
18. Dixie Cup
19. Rice Krispie treats
20. Alfajores
21. Blondies Far too sickly for my liking.
22. Croquembouche Nom nom nom.
23. Girl Scout cookies
24. Moon cake
25. Candy Apple
26. Baked Alaska Pain in the bum to make.
27. Brooklyn Egg Cream
28. Nanaimo bar I actually managed to make this not knowing what it was.
29. Baba au rhum Not keen on the alcomohol, but everything is worth a shot. Not keen, for obvious reasons.
30. King Cake Looks interesting, from a cultural point of view.
31. Sachertorte Overrated.
32. Pavlova An Iceland everything-for-a-fiver classic.
33. Tres Leches Cake Want to try this. Soon.
34. Trifle
35. Shoofly Pie
36. Key Lime Pie (made with real key lime) God I love Nigella Lawson.
37. Panna Cotta M&S do a nice one, actually.
38. New York Cheesecake Not keen on baked cheesecakes as a rule, including this one.
39. Napoleon / mille-fueille Custard or Cream Slice
40. Russian Tea Cake / Mexican Wedding Cake
41. Anzac biscuits One of Mark's many legacies to my taste in sweet things.
42. Pizzelle
43. Kolache
44. Buckeyes
45. Malasadas These are very similar to what us Brits know as a doughnut.
46. Moon Pie
47. Dutch baby German pancake, basically a sweet Yorkshire pudding.
48. Boston Cream Pie
49. Homemade chocolate chip cookies Buying the dough means it does not count ;-)
50. Pralines
51. Gooey butter cake This looks interesting.
52. Rusks A student favourite.
53. Daifuku Again, looks interesting. And something that doesn't seem as Western-Centric.
54. Green tea cake or cookies
55. Cupcakes from a cupcake shop
56. Crème brûlée
57. Some sort of deep fried fair food (twinkie, candy bar, cupcake) Bounty bar. Battered and fried.
58. Yellow cake with chocolate frosting I thought yellowcake was U₃O₈!
59. Jelly Roll Swiss Roll
60. Pop Tarts Ew. Very Ew. How on earth can people define these as tasty?
61. Charlotte Russe
62. An "upside down" dessert (Pineapple upside down cake or Tarte Tatin)
63. Hummingbird Cake
64. Jell-O from a mould Jelly, although you might likely knew that
65. Black forest gateau
66. Mock Apple Pie (Ritz Cracker Pie)
67. Kulfi
68. Linzer torte Pretty much a bakewell tart without the icing, although it would be deceptive to say I've tried the one stated here
69. Churro These look nom.
70. Stollen
71. Angel Food Cake
72. Mincemeat pie Mince pie Don't like the boozy ones.
73. Concha Many variations of these around the world, with different names.
74. Opera Cake Wow
75. Sfogliatelle / Lobster tail
76. Pain au chocolat
77. A piece of Gingerbread House
78. Cassata
79. Cannoli
80. Rainbow cookies
81. Religieuse A pretty special looking eclair.
82. Petits fours
83. Chocolate Souffle
84. Bienenstich (Bee Sting Cake)
85. Rugelach
86. Hamenstashen
87. Homemade marshmallows
88. Rigo Janci
89. Pie or cake made with candy bar flavors (Snickers pie, Reeses pie, etc)
90. Divinity These either look like peppermint creams, or a soft nougat. I shall investigate.
91. Coke or Cola cake One of the very first recipies I tried from teh internets.
92. Gateau Basque
93. S'mores Difficult. If I was being faithful, I would say no as I have no access to graham crackers. However, if you broaden the range of biscuity things that can be used, I have tried these many many times.
94. Figgy Pudding
95. Bananas foster or other flaming dessert Does Christmas pudding count? ;-)
96. Joe Froggers
97. Sables French Butter Cookies
98. Millionaire's Shortbread
99. Animal crackers
100. Basbousa

One of the nice things about Visio is that it rearranges your shapes as you drop new ones on the page.

It also however then wont let you nudge them about wherever you darn well please. you'll move that shape over, only to find it gets to a certain point and "bounces back" to where you started. Hours of fun watching it jump about (err?).

You can turn this off for each shape individually using the "Behavior" dialog box ("Do not lay out and route around"), but it seems to grey itself out if you have a selection of shapes to change, or just simply doesn't change them when you select something else.

Luckily, everything about a shape is in the shapesheet. But then you can't edit many shapesheets at once.

So, my contribution to this problem is this:

• The Shapesheet cell that governs this behaviour is "ObjType". 4 means you can place the shapes where you like and they will not be rearranged. 0-3 are variations of "Let Visio Decide" or "Lay out and route around".

0 Default. The application decides based on the drawing context. (visLOFlagsVisDecides)
1 Shape is placeable. (visLOFlagsPlacable)
2 Shape is routable. Must be a one-dimensional (1-D) shape. (visLOFlagsRoutable)
4 Shape is not placeable, not routable. (visLOFlagsDont)
8 Group contains placeable/routable shapes. (visLOFlagsPNRGroup)

• VBA is wonderful at automating en mass shape changes that may have lost their masters. So now, we have a tool to well... make the darn shapes behave.

The example below applies to an entire document, and it can easily be adapted to take a selection, or a page.

Edit: This will most likely work with 2003 as well, but I don't have that to test it with.

Basically.... it's snowballed. The old previously lost posts are in drafts, and because I never got them sorted out... I stopped posting. Well no more... Posting time!

runs off tweeting

Due to this site being a hot potato between two servers, all my changes pre about mid January have been lost.

This includes all my XHTML fixes :-( sobs

I've managed to get my posts back, which I will return as soon as I can.

Sorry..

It’s dead.

I’m now considering options for a new machine… saving up for a Macbook Pro perhaps? It’s going to be my main machine, and it will be funded by me, may as well splash out…

A minimac is also an option if I can get a cheap old macbook/ibook off ebay. But seeing as the thing that happened to mine is a regular fault with that ibook model, it would just be a ticking time bomb… not good. One of the nice things about hunting on ebay at the moment is that since I own a leopard upgrade, it’s not a huge deal if the machine doesn’t have it… result! Hopefully this will still be the case in a few months or possibly later.

On another note… WHY haven’t any shops got blue or grey shirts? WHY? I like grey. I like blue. I can only seem to get white (yay, I’ll look like a bleedin’ waitress or overgrown schoolgirl), black (or a salon worker), or red (bringing up my rosacea-style-skin as a highlight is not an amazing idea).

Also… WHY are sizes getting stupidly bigger again? I have not gained or lost inches… why can I suddenly fit into size 16? Come on shops, it’s going to get to the stage where people on the lower end of normal size will have to resort to children’s clothing! The main culprits for this seem to be ASDA, Sainsburys and New Look so far (Evans have been doing this for years). H+M and primark to a certain extent have faithfully kept to the proper sizes… so I’m not imagining it.

It’s going to get regular… The Bank of England will announce interest rates, and then the clothes shops will announce that 16 is the new 10 or something. Women in their millions will flock to the shops with their new lower rate loans and mortgages, buy lots of clothes, over-inflating the high street AGAIN contributing to the high street not realising they need to innovate to make real money for the future, putting off the recession more so then making it worse when they do…

Wait. Did I just link the obesity crisis to a significant problem in the UK economy? Oh dear.
-sits in corner and slaps self-
Lady at agency the other day kept mentioning the word “wavelength”… all my brain could do was “lamba lamba lambda…” Or for those with unicode fonts: “λ λ λ…”

Nope. There is no general easy finishing point to this post, might as well end now…

There seems to be a bug where I can’t delete trackbacks, so the spam ones are just collecting…
I’ll get onto working out whether this is a typo problem or something else, and get back to you with the solution.
Also, any post pages with trackbacks currently aren’t complying with XHTML 1.0 strict, so I’ll see if it’s fixable (most likely is).

A little information on how the UK does prescription payments for those curious souls I’ve directed from #bipolarworld -waves to everyone-
We pay for prescriptions. They’re not completely free. However, it’s certainly not the pay-for-market-price system in the US.

Firstly, there are exemptions, listed here: http://www.patient.co.uk/showdoc/23069022/ These include: - If you are under 16 (under 25 in Wales).
- If you are under 19 and in full-time education.
- If you are aged 60 or over.
If you (or your partner) gets one of the following:
- Income Support.
- Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance.
- Pension Credit Guarantee Credit.
- If you have an NHS tax credit exemption certificate.
- Some war pensioners - if treatment is connected with the pensionable disability.
- If you have a prescription exemption certificate for certain conditions (this includes epilepsy and diabetes)
- People on a low income who have a certificate HC2 (you fill a form and it wants to know exactly how poor you are, and then it works out if you need the help)

Secondly the contraceptive pill is also exempt.
Thirdly, you pay £6.85 (about $13.50) currently for each med you have, each time it needs to be renewed. This doesn’t matter how many tablets you have, you always pay the same fee for one medication. So in July when I ran out of medication and couldn’t get home because of flooding, I was prescribed less than a week of my meds, but I still paid for two sets of meds as if it was a month’s worth, which is what I usually get each time.

One of the associated actions with this is that you have no clue whether you’ll get brand name or generic medication… you may visit a different pharmacy and get given a generic med, or vice versa. You don’t have the privilege of choosing like you do in the US.

I’ll try to explain how the mental health system works here… although I have very little knowledge, and every area operates differently… eek.

Some lovely soul has made a drawing app that is rather natural to use. The interesting feature is that it is resolution independent. So I’ve had a play.

Rita is lunch shareware… costs about the same as a nice lunch! ($20)

Rita Website

Yeah um. (I’d like to note that the majority of those aren’t mine)

Technorati Profile.

Here is carbonara and pilaf. Feedback very welcome, still experimenting to get a good format.
Carbonara Download
Pilaf Download

.

Ronseal. It's hidden in a submenu for the normal selection tool. Go play.

For those of us who have never properly touched photoshop, suddenly we can do stuff. Woot..

Time takes a cigarette, puts it in your mouth
You pull on your finger, then another finger, then your cigarette
The wall-to-wall is calling, it lingers, then you forget
Ohhh how how how, youre a rock n roll suicide

Youre too old to lose it, too young to choose it
And the clocks waits so patiently on your song
You walk past a cafe but you dont eat when you've lived too long
Oh, no, no, no, youre a rock n roll suicide

Chev brakes are snarling as you stumble across the road
But the day breaks instead so you hurry home
Dont let the sun blast your shadow
Dont let the milk float ride your mind
Youre so natural - religiously unkind

Oh no love! you're not alone
Youre watching yourself but youre too unfair
You got your head all tangled up but if I could only
Make you care
Oh no love! you're not alone
No matter what or who you've been
No matter when or where you've seen
All the knives seem to lacerate your brain
I've had my share, Ill help you with the pain
You're not alone

Just turn on with me and you're not alone
Lets turn on with me and you're not alone (wonderful)
Lets turn on and be not alone (wonderful)
Gimme your hands cause you're wonderful (wonderful)
Gimme your hands cause you're wonderful (wonderful)
Oh gimme your hands.

This song always suits my mood when I feel small. And itunes shuffle decided that at the turn of midnight, that's what plays.

And congratulations Bjorn for the arrival of your baby girl Julia..

Incident 1.

My brother is going out.
t'mother: "why not bring Ashley along?" (half jokingly)
t'brother: "oh, she wont like the music. they're DJs, they play sets and things"

Incident 2.

David sees the CV. Gets somewhat stunned that I have a pretty decent grasp of DTP and a sense of what looks good.

Seems to be a confusing set of data here: what do people perceive me as? I'm fairly receptive to everything really which seems to confuse people. Techy friends who actually know what they're doing perceive me as the fluffy one, non-Techy friends see me as the "techy" one. friends who like indie perceive me as too much of a liker of dance music, and friends who like dance music perceive me as too much of an indie person.

I like everything it seems. Apart from mashed potato, and as just discovered a second ago from a conversation with my brother, elitism.

Christmas day is going to be fun: my brother was put in charge of desserts and has returned... with carrot cake and ben and jerrys..

06:15 < Ashley> Steve: I have savings :/ 06:16 < Ashley> I'll make it to christmas, *just*. 06:16 < Ashley> beyond that, i have no clue 06:16 < Ashley> hence I'm signing on today, as that'll take about 6 weeks to start working anyway. 06:17 < Ashley> probably longer with christmas in the middle 06:18 < Ashley> I really didn't want to do this 06:18 < Ashley> But I'll call pertemps in leicester too, seeing as keith had success with them a few years ago. 06:20 < Ashley> but I'm banging my head on a brick wall here. 06:20 < Ashley> I can only hit about 50wpm after taking errors into account, so perhaps I'm just not cut for office jobs. 06:21 < Ashley> I'm just scared, y'know? 06:21 < Ashley> I saw lots of middle aged women in dirty beige trousers and denim jackets... 06:22 < Ashley> it's like my mum's worst nightmare. Only it's now mine. 06:22 < Ashley> I have indoor clothes, and outdoor clothes. 06:22 < Ashley> indoor clothes i can do whatever i want 06:23 < Ashley> outdoor clothes: always immaculately fitted, looking/smelling good, everything coordinates. 06:23 < Ashley> Can't ever lose it one day and look *poor*, can i? :(

Well, that's it. Can't look poor, or crazy, or non-conformist in any well, "poor" way... non-conformist with money = fine. Non-conformist without money = bag lady.

It also seems that women throughout at least the past 200 years or so have been held up to a higher level than men in that less non-conformism was tolerated. Women were girls, wives or prositutes. Women have been institutionlised in the 20th Century for:

• Reading too much
• Getting pregnant out of wedlock or as a teenager
• "Going for long walks"
• Taking too much interest in boys
• Not taking enough interest in boys

And so on and so forth.

People (mostly men) often question me on this neurosis about what I wear. They think that overall, it doesn't make a difference. But oh yes it does.

Two women in an interview situation: both identical, but one just "feels" better to the interviewers: you know why? One women had the finishing touches: makeup, appropiate clothing (most likely a suit that actually fits her as opposed to matched her dress size in the aisle in Asda), a general confident air that said "pick me, as I have all the details there".

I also read far too much on fark style websites about men whinging about teeth, tummies, slightly crooked eyes, hell even subtle signs that the woman may be menstruating. It'll be on craig's list too, in the dating rant sections...

And your average bloke? He wont notice much in the day to day scheme of things if you already are his girlfriend, but when he's picking someone? He's not going to like stubble, in any way, or hair in places where it "shouldn't be" on a woman. He may prefer someone in a skirt, or merely someone who "looks comfortable". In fact, "looks comfortable" translates to "looks like how she does now, only I don't have to hear about it".

Yeah, this is where it dies: not only do we have to look great, smell great, look available as women constantly, we have to make the general thing look effortless. I don't, I break that rule, and thus people see me as nuts.

I currently feel under this scrunity a lot more than usual while job hunting: I turn up at an agency in a heavy shapeless black coat and wet hair, most likely redness on my face and no makeup, and I got a very lacklusture response. Go in with a fitting cordoury jacket, beige flat fronted trousers, brown boots and a fitted jumper... and I ooze "effortless causal, giz job kplsthx".

But. it. bloody. well. wasn't. no. effort. And I don't even use makeup, so I usually have to keep my red flashes under control.

If I ever manage to find enough money to go jobless for a bit, I'll experiment and try an average male grooming regime, and see how I get on - I'll even make it fairly objective by asking men for attractiveness ratings on the before and after..