"**ckingjay"

What's that you say? A rude title? Hmm...well, merely drawing attention to this bizarre mishap on a poster for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2:

https://www.bostonherald.com/business/media_marketing/2015/08/the_hunger_games_poster_accidentally_drops_expletive

I find it difficult to believe that nobody on the design team for the poster noticed the blatant appearance of an inappropriate word in the overlapping texts, so this is either an epic fail or epic trolling. Seriously? How could it not have been noticed? This does, however, bring more publicity to the film - not that it needs it.

No more dog mess

One of the local primary schools has begun a canine crap clearing campaign:

There are about fifteen of these anti-dog mess posters hanging up and down the road that passes the school, each one created by a different student. All contain a drawing and a slogan along the lines of "clean up dog mess" or "no to dog poo" written on them.

I think they're both creative and environmentally aware! These posters gave the chance for the children to use their imaginations - and for a noble cause: if children can be encouraged to help clean up smaller messes like this, perhaps it'll also teach them to help address environmental problems when they're older.

There is a lot of dog mess in this town. To be fair, most dog owners do clear up after their canines, but the minority that don't are numerous enough to cause the dog mess to be perpetually visible.

Chatsworth House 2013 pictures

On the 22nd of August, my uncle, cousin, one of my cousins friends and I visited Chatsworth House in Derbyshire. My uncle, cousin and I have now been to the House for three years in a row; we went there this year at my cousin's request. We did not embark on a major trek as we did last year, and this time my uncle and I went inside the House.

While I have an abundance of pictures from this visit to Chatsworth House, a large amount of them are of me and/or my group (and therefore ineligible to be posted here under my rules). Despite this, I've included a decent selection of scenes from the day:

 

This is a sculpture for an art exhibition at Chatsworth House, Beyond Limits. I think this sculpture is a piece called ''Standing Woman'', by Colombian painter and sculptor Fernando Botero, although I'm not completely certain. None of us read the plaque or sign by the sculpture's feet; at that point in the day, we didn't know that it was part of an exhibition.

In my coverage of my first trip to Chatsworth House, I wrote about the maze. This is a picture taken from the centre of the maze; there was a tree located at the centre on my previous two visits but it has since been removed. I do not know why.

This hedge is the outer wall of the maze. All four of us reached the centre but my uncle made it there first and already exited it by the time my cousin, friend and I had arrived.

This is another sculpture for Beyond Limits, titled Spiral of the Galaxy; it is by Marc Quinn.

This is the sign for the aforementioned sculpture. After we paid little attention to the plaques and signs of the other pieces, I ensured I photographed this one.

This is the rock from where I attempted my infamous mud jump last year. My uncle gave a spectacular retelling of the incident to us for the benefit of my cousin's friend; his retell was hilarious and deeply impressed us. If you ever want to hear the story of the time I jumped into the mud at Chatsworth House, hear it from my uncle!

An obligatory shot of Chatsworth House itself, just to show that we were there. The weather was sunny for most of the day but the clouds partially obscured the sunshine towards the end of our visit.

This trip might have been my third year at Chatsworth House in a row, but I was pleased by my cousin's request and both the House and its grounds never become boring. I will always recommend to people who want to come to the United Kingdom to go to Chatsworth House; you won't be disappointed.

The ice webs redux

Remember those ice webs from last month? With the return of the freezing weather the ice webs are back. Here are some new pictures:

In that last picture, the central pole for our washing line/net isn't straight, hence why it looks as though I didn't hold the camera even.

Small Christmas tree 2012

My family and I assembled our own Christmas trees this year, repeating what we did in 2009 and 2011. We collected some decent branches from outside, allowed them to dry in the garage and then placed them into some suitable jars or pots. We built two trees; this is the smaller one, which my brother decorated:

Unfortunately, taking a picture of the larger tree would show too much of our living room, so only the lesser tree will have its image here. However, I am happy to send a picture of the larger tree - and more pictures of this tree - to anybody who requests it; the larger tree is impressive, but then again, I am biased because I decorated it!

There is something more satisfying about constructing a tree over going out and buying one. I don't like killing a tree for only a couple of weeks at a certain time of the year, and a fake tree doesn't feel right either. These branches may be unusual, and perhaps not as visually appealing as a regular tree, but I love them all the same.

The decorated tin

Remember the bauble-covered tin from last year's Christmas decorations? The tin is back, this time with a new theme:

Mum decorated the tin this time; my "decoration" using the above golden ribbons looked more like a bizarre bird's next than an actual decoration.

Building a Christmas tree

Myself, my brother, and my mother spent some time in the backyard this afternoon collecting some branches for our Christmas tree this year, as we are going to "build" the Christmas tree from them. Sound strange? I will go into our history of a home-made Christmas tree.

For the first three years in Oregon, we purchased natural Christmas trees, and thanks to having acres of land we were able to plant them all in our yard once the Christmas season had finished (we strongly dislike the practice of throwing away a living tree after Christmas, so we were fortunate to have plenty of land for the trees). In later Christmases we had a fake Christmas tree, but in 2009, our last Christmas in the United States, we decided to do something different and make a tree from branches in our yard.

We went into the woods on our land one morning and collected a few pine and oak branches. We allowed them to dry out for a few days and made sure they were bug-free, then we brought them into the house. After finding a suitable tin to place the branches in (to ensure they could stand up without falling over), we decorated it as we would a normal Christmas tree (although it could not have too many decorations otherwise it would fall over). We even placed the gifts for that year underneath it. It did not look anything like a regular Christmas tree, but it was significantly more fun making our own tree rather than getting a fake one out of a box and subsequently setting it up.

Assembling our own Christmas tree out of branches from our yard is the plan for this year, as we had such a great time making one two years ago. The only thing we need once the branches have dried out is a container to stand them up in, but I am sure we have one somewhere.

A picture of "The City"

Back in June, I wrote about "The City", a city we built out of rocks, bricks, metals, and other materials, and was situated at the front of our house in Oregon for a time. Here is a picture of it:

This was the city in its earlier days: the metal poles and some of the more broken bricks were removed not long after this image was taken. The tallest tower on the left was moved to where the long metal pole in the middle is located in the picture; in addition to being moved it was subsequently "upgraded", and at one point stood at over four feet in height. Various other buildings were also added, but unfortunately, the only pictures we have of the city in its later days are all on photographic paper and have not yet been scanned for digital storage.

The mystery kit

My brother and I used to have a large wooden clothes drawer. However, rather than just being a place to store a large amount of our clothes, it doubled as a piece of furniture I decorated with stickers that came in the mail  (yes, I really did used to have a place to put stickers). The front top drawer and one of the piece of furniture's sides were both covered in stickers; neatly, of course, as I wanted the decorations to at least look good.

Sometime back in either 2001 or 2002, a letter arrived in the mail informing us that we may have won a certain type of mystery kit, aimed at kids 10+. The kit was free, but the type of mystery kit we would receive depended on what type of "key" the letter contained: if it had a sticker showing a silver key, it would be a basic kit; but if it was a sticker with a gold key on it, we would receive comprehensive mystery kit (I cannot remember what the contents in either kit were, it has been a long time since then). Once either key had been mailed back, you would then receive the kit. I should note here that the letter was not spam...it had just come with something else we were subscribed to at the time.

With the sticker of the gold key in the letter, we had won a comprehensive mystery kit! It was not really something we needed, but it was suited for people of my age at that time, and it could have been a lot of fun. So...what did I decide to do instead?

That is right! I threw the chance away by placing the sticker with the golden key, along with a few other stickers that came in the letter, on our clothes drawer. Rather than taking the opportunity to win a neat new item, I decided to add to my sticker collection.

It the grand scheme of things, not getting a mystery kit was not that big of a deal, but when I look back upon the whole occasion I still think I was a chump for not mailing back the gold key sticker. On the bright side, the sticker lasted on the clothes drawer until sometime in 2009 when Mum had to remove all my stickers so the furniture could be sold.

Lily

Sometime either in 1999 or 2000, my brother and I were doing some arts/craft work at an event we were attending one Sunday. The work involved creating and decorating a card to send to someone in a nursing home, and the person our card would be going to was somebody named Lily. I cannot remember what the health of the people in the nursing homes was stated as, but from what I can recall, the cards were just to cheer the people in the homes up.

I only remembered Lily recently because I know someone else with that name, and thinking about her name the other day reminded me about the Lily we made a card for so long ago.

Chatsworth House images

On 8th August my aunt and uncle, two of my cousins, their friend, my brother, and I myself went to Chatsworth House in Derbyshire. Here are some photos of that day, plus some more about what happened:

This is a view of Chatsworth House from the back. Unfortunately, the house was being renovated in parts that day, and this is the best picture I took of the place. I was not bothered about the work on the house, as it does need maintenance for it to be preserved.

This is a piece of amethyst on display within Chatsworth. I think it is beautiful, and I have always thought amethyst is a lovely gemstone, so it was a real treat to see a piece that large.

One of the of many paintings on the ceiling at Chatsworth House. They were so numerous there that it was not possible to get a picture of every one of them. Still, they were impressive to look at...imagine painting them!

This has to be one of the best parts of Chatsworth House: although the violin on the door looks as though it is real, in reality it is a painting made to look 3D.

This is a pink vase. One of my cousins wanted a picture of it, so I answered her request. It actually is a pretty nice vase.

Now this was an impressive piece of art: I was amazed by its detail and at how shiny it was...a truly brilliant piece! Oh wait...they did not have flat-screen televisions back in the 1500s did they?

Well, it certainly took him long enough! I wonder what kept him?

The dining area was a fine room too, though I would not have wanted to have washed all those dishes on my own!

Outside on the grounds was this maze, and this is a picture of it. We spent more than twenty minutes searching for the middle before my brother found a path that we missed: before long, my cousins' friend, one of my cousins, my brother, and myself were in the middle of the maze!

Here is the tree in the centre of the maze. Our friend was the one who went out to fetch everyone in our group who had not found the middle yet. There was a nice feeling of satisfaction when we reached that tree!

The visit to Chatsworth House was excellent, and I do thank my aunt and uncle very much for taking us there. We had dinner at a restaurant called Nando's, a place where I had never eaten at before until then, before going back to my grandparents' house for the night.

"The City"

A little over nine years ago, my brother and I built something we called "The City". The City was a "city" we built in front of our house in Oregon out of rocks, bricks, and loose metals scattered around our property (and sometimes from our neighbors' lands too, though in those cases, it was only the junked bricks and metals we collected: no one minded as it got some garbage off their properties).

Originally, it was constructed from a handful of small rocks and stones, but we soon decided to search for bigger materials to build the city with. It also wasn't a "city"...my brother and I were building a town each to begin with. However, within a day of starting, we had merged our two small towns into a full city, and from the materials we had collected we had made "skyscrapers" (well, two-to-four feet high skyscrapers!) There was even a large piece of quartz that we moved on our yard to place near the heart of The City.

We were pleased by our creation, and people who saw it tended to like it. One of our neighbors was an artist, and The City impressed him: he even copied us and made similar things in his own yard. The lizards used The City as a place to hide out, the birds visited it to collect bugs to eat, and the hummingbirds used the tallest tower in the city as a place to perch so that they could defend the hummingbird feeder more easily. It was a success it its own little way!

The City lasted for about fourteen months before it was decided that it was best to have it taken down. Overall, its existence was a double-benefit as it not only looked good while it was intact, but since my brother and I had collected bricks and metals to build it, it cleared a lot of junk from both our property and a couple of others.