Brain Splodes

Welcome one and all to the crazed brain farts of the internets least known lover of the weird, wacky and wonderful. Please, come in, pull up a chair and bear witness to each and every post detailing work, life, love and art. (Probably not in that exact order.)

You may not like what you see, you may tollerate it: but I'll pretty much guarantee that you'll feel a little unclean once the gloves come off..

Enjoy your stay and don't forget to wipe your feet on the way out! 

Mah portfolio: www.leannefitzpatrick.co.uk 

If you enjoyed your stay, or even if you didn't, please feel free to leave me a comment on this here post and introduce yourself/tell me how you found this little space.

Peace y'all!

Last night as midnight rolled round and I played a little Warcrack, I found myself in horde territory. After being mobbe several times in the past I was a little wary about having my toon raeped again (damn belfs...) Luckily for me, I ran into a couple Taurens, and spent a goo half an hour having a dance-off. Add to that a random but ultimately hilarious conversation with the guild and what we have is an awesome evening.

Yeah, that's rock an roll baby!

As the title says. I nipped to my parents on Tuesday, only to find out my Grandad was in hospital after suffering a heart attack.

Cue worry and stress, and then we get a phone call... it wasn't a heart attack at all, just one of his arteries had decided it wanted a waistline without the aid of corsetry and he'd not been getting enough oxygen... so thank you GP who over-reacted... (quite possible hoping for more custom from our family...)

So anyway, I've been staying with my nan all week, which has been most interesting to say the least. (found out she's a Jeremy Kyle fan, so we've had lovely conversations about that whilst she'd been doing her knitting and I've had at it with a tapestry.

Long story short, me Granpappy is home, and back to full health. He's delighted in telling me all about the camera that was pushed through his veins from his wrist, up to his elbow, and the camera that has made a round trip of his circulatory system and pumped his artery back out to regular size. He was awake and watching the whole thing.

Also... I'm gonna be a godmummy tomorrow...

There's also been existential emoing about my lack of job/money and reply from companies I've applied to for jobs, but that is another story all together. To be honest, I'm whacked.

Yis. The urge to draw had me positively leaping from my bed with joy this morning.

Actually, I'm lying through my teeth, but there was an honest to goodness urge to draw... and being as I didn't know what the mother-loving hell to draw I tried my hand at a draenei.

Yep, you read that right. I have fallen deep into the treacle jar now, and theres no escape!

We celebrated Bonfire Night last night, my family and I - though it was my dear ol' mum's birfday, so we had a totally valid excuse for setting for to 150 quids worth of fireworks...

There was no drama... and mother was most pleased with all the chocolate and flowers. She has a sponge/marzipan/merangue cake, decorated by yours truely.

I also spent the morning making strombolini, sausage rolls and garlic (with rosemary and chive) bread... all was successful...

So, short and sweet.

Also! I am 4 days into the NaNo challenge, and about to hit my daily word count, so yay!

I am also still traumatized by the video I was linked to a couple of days ago. My eyes, they bleed...

Well... my favourite holiday of they year is over... and I didn't do anything. Mainly because I was wrapped up in a cardigan, a blanket and a quilt shivering and sweating at the same time. (I think it's because on Thursday and Friday, I was busy trying to make flash elements work on a website - I hate flash sometimes - and I kinda forgot to eat...) Fortunately, I have a most understanding boyfriend, and so copious amounts of apple juice were on tap, along with films- some cheezy, some serious and a couple of not-so-scary ones. Our list was:

- Bram Stoker's Dracula (1st time I watched it. Made me cry.)
- Sleepy Hollow (Probably 1000th time I've watched it. Loves me some Johnny Depp)
- Shadow of the Vampire (1st time I watched it. Love Willem Defoe. Felt really sorry for the vampire.)
- Corpse Bride
- From Hell
- The Iron Giant
- Constantine
- The Nightmare Before Christmas
- Dracula: Dead and Loving It.

Didn't see anything after Shadow of the Vampire, unfortunately. I fell asleep and had fevered dreams about being back at school (thanks, I think, in part to a certain someone sending me a link to a video that was terryfying for all the wrong reasons)...

I feel much better today though, and so I may continue my Halloween festivities by watching the rest of the films whilst I do the ironing... because I am just that hardcore!

I have a folder full of scraps of paper with scribbles and scrawlings on it. All of them are ideas for something, be it a 3000 word short story, a full length 150k + novel, a comic strip or a graphic novel... I generally write notes, put them in the folder and forget about them. Until today. My ranom trawling of the internet and almost stalkerish lurking on many forums and blogs has led me to find something I'd like to give a try: A couple of anthologies: Two for YA and one for 7+ kids.

Considering I generally write about monsters, murderers and other dark and grizley things, I never thought of writing for children, even though I'm generally the one called for story time when I'm about. I think one to many creative retelling of the old fairy tales has made me a little bit unpopular with my sisters at bedtime though. Especially as said children were supposed to be sleeping and not huffing and puffing at one another like the big bad wolf... (I thought it was fun anyway!)

But I digress. The folder. I got it out and had a look through it and found one scrap of paper detailing a dream I had a few years back. I remember the dream, it was really sad and sweet, and all about the innocence of children. I think I might give it a shot- it seems right for the anthology theme, to be honest. I can still write the nasty stuff into it- a good story needs a fantastic villain! But I figure what the hell? I feel burned out on my paranormal series and quite frankly, would welcome a break on it. This one has me a little bit excited.

The worst that can happen is that it doesn't get picked, right? But I'll at least have the satisfaction of having tried.


In other news I have +3 Cooking, +70 Domestic Goddess to add to my never before kept score, for I have blasted my way through the kitchen, made it all clean, rearranged the cupboards for maximum food/appliance storage and made a mixed fruit bread pudding. From scratch, and I didn't burn it. It's already been eaten up. I'm under orders to make another one though, and I will take photos. ('cos everyone knows, if there's no pics, it didn't happen!) - I'm gonna make some dinner now. Late, I know, but I'm hungry and my internal body clock is definately not running on GMT.

Dude, seriously... this is the very first conversation we've ever had. Not even my LONG TERM BOYFRIEND tells me he's horny after a brief "hello howz u?"

You've obviously been through my profile since you're asking me about the photo's there... asking which one's me, telling me you like both (seriously, way to keep your options open) and then  hoping I'm the one with big tits...

Big tits? Seriously? Are you taking the piss? Not only are you insulting my friend who's also in the photo, but you've completely disregarded my relationship status, and insulted both me and my previously mentioned LONG TERM BOYFRIEND by asking me for my contact info and wanting me to prove I'm a natural redhead! You aren't endearing yourself to me at all! Especially if you think I'm the kind of girl that will jump at anything with a dick, which is what you are implying.

Just because the moral standars of the human race has sunk to the gutter, doesn't mean I'm gonna cyber/phone sex on the the first conversation... or even the 50th, or the bazillionth! It's not happening. Credit me with a) some standards, b) some sanity and c) some bloody intelligence! You think I want an STD on my computer? No thank you!

Also, asking whether "down there" is au natural or pruned is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU! Only two people in the world know about that sort of thing, and neither of them are saying anything. Unless it grows in a garden or plant pot, topiary is private!

Jeeze... why would you even ask for things like that? It's creepy and just a lot weird.

Also, buggering off because I won't have the sexy talk with you is just insulting, even if you did say I was beautiful, COMPLIMENTS DO NOT ENTITLE YOU TO SEXY TIMES!

Damn you, facebook! You're pretty much the only way I can keep track of people! I would quit you so fast otherwise!

I have a book. It differes slightly from the 1000's of other books I have in two ways. The first being that I wrote it. The second being that it is one of a hundred other books that I've actually finished.

Now, when I say finished, I mean the first draft. Oh yes. I'm coming to the fun part: the editing of said book. See, when I started writing this one, I promised myself I wouldn't fall into the same trap as I did in my youth: sending it out to agents as soon as the last word was printed. I shudder to think what that poor man thought when faced with that rambling, untamed and untrimmed monster... in my defence though, I was a teenager and everything I wrote was literary genius.

Hmm... skip forward a few years, I'm in my last year of uni and I start writing this... and shock of all shocks... I finish writing it. It's been sitting in a ringbinder for the last year. Truth be told, I'd forgotten about it... but now I've got a stack of red pens and have begun the editing/rewriting. Soon, my lovely pages of typing will be a mass of red scribbles, rewritten sentences, an chunks of cut words. Maybe I'll even throw a bit of plot in there.

(Basically, it'll look like one of my high school essays.)

Fun times ahead my chaps! Four chapters down, another thirty odd to go!

The ingriedients for this Recipie to Certain Disaster are as follows:

1 mountain bike that has sat, barely used in a shed since Christmas.
2 safety pins
2 1/2 miles of hilly road (give or take a few hundred yards)
2 miles approx of canal side towpath
1 one truly out of condition idiot (yours truly)
1 (mis) appropriately curled down dog turd.

Prior to this half baked cake, some preliminary work is required. These include:

10+ years of studiously avoiding as much physical exertion as possible.
A lifetie of hermitude, where the most strenuous thing done is turn the page of a book/tap on keys/pick up a pencil/ (for best results, count your typing speed as strenuous excercise. Also, you will be right on the mark if most of your waking activity takes place sitting on your ass)

Once these preparations are complete you are ready to get on that bike, even thouh it's been a good five or six years since you traveled in anything but a car, and tell yourself it will only be half an hours journey and that it'll be plain sailing once you've got yourself a rhythm.

And now, if you're anything like me, you'll get about 1/3 of the way to your appointment before you start telling yourself what a bloody fool you were, your hips start to scream at you and plot your demise and your throat starts closing over. It's at this point that you'll realise you've forgot your bottle of water. It's all fun and games at this point.

Skip forward, and that 1/2 hour has suddenly become 2 hours, you're late for your appointment and very close to a coronary... food is on the agenda. You eat, you feel better, you try to get back on your bike and realise your ass feels like either aliens have probed it. Repeately, or someone borrowed a pneumatinc drill and has been pounding your particulars for a good three hours.

The journey home is horrendous, but luckily you have a friend on the way who you can spend a couple of hours with, talking nerd things, drinking refreshing life giving ambrosia (squash) and generally remembering what cusioned seats feel like.

So... now I'm home. I set out at 1.00pm and got back at 7.45 pm. I have sat, eaten a delicious mild pork curry cooked by my dear old mum and I've stopped feeling sick. I actualy feel better for doing some excercise. I rode and walked along a beautiful stretch of the canal, felt my lungs filling for the first time in ages and knew my blood was rushing through my veins properly... not like the River Ankh for once (you get +10 bonus points if you guess the reference). I know I'm gonna sleep well tonight, and tomorrow I've gotta go out again or I'm gonna ache like a salmon-a-batch.

And now, I am off to make my WoW work. I am having withdrawal symptoms.
Jeez... epic update is epic...

edit: The aforementioned dog turd is optional and purely for the locals entertainment.

overwight jittery cycling girl + one slimey camoflauged turd + one extremely narrow canal towpath with crumbling barrier = much hilarity to the sure footed boaters of Englands waterways.

I've finally done it. Five years of resisting (and by resisting, I mean just not being bothered) I have taken the leap and plunged myself into World of Warcrack... oh boy.

I am now a Draenei Shaman...

Other news, I was forced to stay in bed for an entire week thanks to the amazing pyrotechnic display of my vision, and the dwarves mining for gold above my eye. The doctor tells me it's stress induced migranes... and that they may reoccur every few days to once in a blue moon. No one really knows for sure. I have bright pink pills though, which makes up for it.

Now... time for me to go flower picking!

There was a fox in my garden this afternoon. At least, it's head was. The rest of it's body was in the field behind our massively dilapidated fence. I dunno if it saw me watching it or not, but it took off down the field pretty quick when it had finished nosing about.

That's the first time I've seen a fox in daylight... and the biggest fox I've ever seen, thus, it was worth a journal in itself.

Note to self: make sure bins are secure tonight.

I am totally hardcore rock and roll, I am. I've stayed up late talking to my fella and watching Poirot on the telly. That is how totally awesome I am!

However... my fella, who I hate! hate! hate! right now, is talking to me - or rather gloating to me - about how awesome the musical "War of the Worlds" is. Knowing that I have been frantically hunting for my version of it, he tells me this! DISHONOUR!

However, because I am lacking in sleep, I am feeling somewhat nostalgic and am reminded of one of, if not the first proper conversation I had with him, before we were together. Hell... it was just after my previous relationship ended.

Steven Speilberg's War of the Worlds had just come out... Or is was shown on TV. I cant remember which, but we both sat talking on MSN about it. Bear in mind that he'd never heard the musical before this. We both loved the train... felt the build up to the massive fight scene was a little more disappointing than anti-climatic... and the All American Happy Ending was just a little too contrived. Also that the screaming girl was very annoying. (Personal opinion. Neither of us can stand screaming children). Mostly, we agree that should their be a third incarnation of the film, it should most definately be set in Victorian England and (my preference only) Johnny Depp should most definately be in there somewhere... even if he's a martian!

Then I told him about the musical and he, knowing that I have lost mine and am craving like a crackwhore for that shit, is playing it and telling me about the Thunderchild.

Serious hate for that boy. I will have revenge for that!

The moral is that life seems to repeat itself in rather smaller cycles than I originally thought. We've been "married" for nearly three years now... and once again we are sitting into the early hours talking about War of the Worlds... I can't help but feel nerdily content with this.

THIS IS HOW HARDCORE WE ARE, DAMNIT ! ! !

Well... what can I say. The last couple of days have been quite productive.

I have thumbnailed six pages for my personal webcomic (something I've been meaning to do ever since I started uni). Tonight I'll be transfering them to the puter. I've got two character designs down pat and have been inking them. I even went to my sisters for dinner.

Unfortunately, I came home to find two fire engins blocking up the entrance to my road. (I live in a tiny village that only has one way in or out).  I hope the fire damage to the property is not indicative to the damage the old lady got. She wasn't about, so I can only assume she's been taken to hospital. Fingers crossed that there's nothing seriously wrong with her.

Thats two fires in as many months. Only a couple of weeks ago there was a lorry explode on the motorway less than half a mile away...

Last night I gave up my hermitude to go out with my little old chum to see the Perseid Meteor Shower.

It was not the enlightened, slightly romantic awe filled experience I was looking forward to. It was, however, an overcast, light polluted night. We went to the highest point around and sat out until gone 1a.m waiting for the cloud to break and the show to begin.

What we saw was: approx. 10 stars, 1 sattelite and a bazillion moths. Oh, and an aeroplane.

Fortunately, the night was not a complete waste, as conversation revolved around work, fun, webdesign, web-comics, WOW and masturbating jokes.

(the night is not complete unless a willy makes an appearance somewhere along the line)

Heh, heh, heh... God help me, I am about to succumb to the underground world of WOW...

I went to Skegness for the day yesterday. 1st time ever for both me and my mum. All three of my sisters and their relative tribes came with us. It took three cars and three hours to get there. We spent the day on the beach (I played with the kids in the sea. I had to drag my 11 month old neice out of the sea. She loved it. She also loves to face-dive into the sand.) The five big kids went for a donkey ride. Then we spent five hours or so in the fair. We didn't get home til 2a.m!

I want to go back again. It was fun. (couldn't stay there though, to many people.) I might have to pitch a tent a few miles away and just spend a day there.

My ikkle sisters boyfriend got a tattoo... which looked nce once we'd managed to wipe mist of the blood away...

I just watched the trailer for Tim Burtons "Alice in Wonderland" - I very much want!!! How does Johnny Depp manage to look so good no matter what get-up he's in? (totally not a complete fan-girl or anything like that.)

My boyfriend is now a bona fide wowfag. Bless. I don't think it'll be long until I am coerced (utterly against my will, of course) to fight the hordes of, well... Horde. Unless I be a rebel and fight Alliance instead...

Ah well, I have work to do. I gots a novel to finish and a cople of character designs to start. Hopefully soon I shall have some monies and I can tootle into Brum and see my Shnuckums (que gagging) - actually, I bought the other half a cheap and tacky souveneer from Skeggy which just sums up our relationship to a tee. He's gonna hurt me!

In really less happy news, there have been yet more deaths in my family, and thanks to the degrading face to face speaking that modern convenience brings... we found out via facebook (frigging facebook!) that my mum's two uncles have died. one of them two weeks ago and already bried/cremated/whatever has been done because no one thought this side of the family would like to know about it before he was gone for good. I mean, really... how hard is it to pick up the phone?... So now we've lost even more of the family. All my mum's side of the family, and I feel so bad for her because no one thought to mention it to her. (lot of family history, mostly bad). My sisters father-inlaw (my dad's childhood best friend) died of cancer last week... for years the hospital had treated him for arthritis (which he neever had!)... and only realised it was cancer when it  had riddled his body so thoroughly it was untreatable... fucking douchbag docters need to start looking beyond the frigging obvious. Not every flaming illness is weight related! Asshats!

Also, the bloke next door died, but I didn't know him so I can't say much about that. My sympathies for his wife, obviously...

All in all.... yesterday was, I think, the break from reality everyone in my family needed from the utter dross and shite of the last few months...

Yesterday my 10 month old neice was diagnosed with swine-flu. The doctors allowed her into the surgery through the back door only because she was a baby. She looked ill, hadn't slept properly for a few days and was generally just run down with teething games.

The doctor himself said he was only prescribing anti-biotics because she looked ill. If it had been my sister with the symptoms, she wouldn't have been admitted to the surgery and, because she didn't look ill, she would have been sent home to ride it out...

So... if this is the case, what is this "pandemic" the news is spouting on about, because as far as I can see, my neice has nothing wrong with her other than teething. People aren't allowed to go to the doctors surgery to get a proper diagnosis and they have to phone a flu hotline to get a prescriptin.

Here's my question: How, when there is only a description of symptoms, can anything be prescribed? Symptoms are linked to any number of illness', not just swine flu. How many reported cases of SF are actually something else, and why, oh why does there have to be such an uproar and panic over something, that as far as I have seen, is just like normal flu and can be fought of by any healthy body?

As it is, this morning my neice has no fever, she's giggling like she usually does and hasn't been knocked off her feet at all.

All this fuss and drama does my head in!

... and thus concludes my jumbled mini-rant on all of this.

Other news: website will be updated soon. Have completed a portrait of my neice and nephew for sister 1. Am beginning work on 2 neices for sister 2, and have a futher 3000 words on novel. Also... formulated ideas for sequel. Bonus.

I am now off to a party to scare and terrorise kids. heh heh heh. I am teh ebilness!

It was my birfday yesterday. I spent it drawing and being surrounded by children. It was fun.
This year was the first time I didn't have a birthday cake. What I did have, however, was little biscuit clouds with buttercream filling spelling out "Happy Birthday" made for me by my neices and nephew... and that was much better than store-bought cake. Bless! They'd spent their whole morning totally-not-making-a-mess-or-eating-the-mixture! :D

I'm 24 now... and it is time, I've been told, that I now have to act more mature... hahahahaha!

Sod that! :D

Action, Adventure and ... Iron Man? I wants me some of that, thank you very much! complete with period costumes and some British Wit, baby! - did I mention it had Jude Law as well?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUQbmFAE5WI

Now I want Christmas to come that little bit earlier!

Shopping at Tesco's generally = nothing special apart from tonight. Bought myself a treat.

Bailies Extra Thick Double Cream with a hint of Caramel! OOOOOHHHHH!

SARA! IF YOU READ THIS GET THEE HITHER TO TESCO's AND BUY THIS STUFF! IT IS THE HOLY GRAIL I TELL YOU!

Other than that... my flowers have died and my cat is trying to leap through a closed 3rd floor windo to get to a moth...