You all know how much I love Marc-Andre Fleury, right?

Even so, I'm aware of his... consistency issues. He's either brilliant or he sucks and not in the good way. (That I know of for sure, although I have my suspicions.)

He sucked at the beginning of last season and just when he started not sucking as loudly, he got hurt. Dany Sabourin decided someone had to suck in goal, so took on that role.

Ty Conklin to the rescue!!!!

Then Flower came back and maybe he was too busy sucking Max after all the injury/bonding time, but he didn't suck at hockey at all and Ty Conklin was a big part of that.

Best back up to the back up EVER!

Now he's gone. To the enemy, no less. I haven't forgotten that I had some love for the Red Wings once, but because of that, I'm even angrier at them for killing my Penguins. Now they've twisted the knife and rubbed salt into the wound.

Ryan Malone. The Penguin of my dreams. Literally. I don't know how many times I've been dreaming of odd things and Ryan Malone has turned up in the most ridiculous way to make sense of it all. Except for the time I had to bail him out for pot possession...

He's now a Tampa Bay Lightning player. What do you even call them? He used to be a Penguin, now he's what? A Lightning? Pffft. Total loss of coolness. I just hope he lives up to his last season. The guy has balls and I will miss them.

Georges Laraque is probably a goner, too. I'll miss his personality more than his skill, but still...

The jury's still out on many more. I'll either squee or mourn for them as the news breaks.

Here's hoping Ray Shero can make the right decisions. I'll forgive him for breaking my heart only if the Pens go one better next season.

I've been having a run of bad luck that has me wondering what I did that was nasty. I know I'm behind on some stuff I was meaning to send off, but I don't think I've tortured or maimed anyone lately...( Shit that happened. )

So whoever or whatever I've been horrible to, I'm sorry. I'm starting to get really bored with drama now and I fail to be surprised by anything that goes wrong. Isn't that enough?

For some reason, my boss has decided he needs to get in a pissing contest with me.

You've got to love governments and their lovely little initiatives. They're designed to drive people insane in order to get us to vote them in again. The latest fun and games involves broadband.

Everyone in Australia is entitled to broadband, according to our leaders. If we can't get it through our telephone lines, we can have a rebate to set up for wireless. If we can't get wireless, we get free set up for satellite. Pretty simple.

My phone lines are so archaic that they only need a touch of rain to go on the fritz. This happened at least once a month over winter. Sometimes once a week. Each time it happens, my dial up gets slower. It's currently 24.4kbps on a good day. 

Telstra keep ringing me to make sure I'm not ready to blow them up. Still, they aren't scheduled for replacement until the end of 2011. The last time I had no phone, they asked me if anyone in my house had a life threatening illness. I told them no, but considering I live on a farm surrounded by bushland and within walking distance of a low security prison, I thought a phone was a pretty necessary item. They told me to use a mobile. When I told them it would be hard to drive the 3kms to get signal if I'd been bitten by a snake, or an escaped prisoner had stolen my car they conceded that a satellite phone would be my only option if I was without my regular connection for longer than a week.

That pissed me off, but it's not the point. I'm getting to that.

I applied for satellite broadband, only to be told that my area is covered by wireless. The prerequisite is that I have to be able to get mobile reception on the next g network. Telstra is owned by the government, yet their assessment of the situation is not good enough. I have to get a technician from some two bit internet provider to come out and measure the signal so that he can write to the powers that be and tell them what they should already know. 

Naturally, said two bit provider is taking it's sweet time to even call me back to discuss the matter.

This is me being angry.   TURTLES!!!!!

The ban on transporting horses has been lifted within my state, but continues everywhere else. We're pretty isolated, all horses that have come across the border since the disease arrived have been tested and are all clear. No EI in this state, thank God and any other source of good luck.

In NSW racing has been banned for two months. The horses stuck in quarantine will now be held for 40 days, thanks to another case being diagnosed. Anyone found moving a horse off it's property will face a possible six month prison term.

Something like 50,000 people will be without their regular income due to the racing ban alone. Horse transport companies can't operate, caterers and bar staff will have to look for new jobs, betting agencies will be lacking the vast majority of their revenue. This also means the government will loose millions in tax. No doubt they'll find a way to take it out of our pockets.

Then there's the people who run horse shows. Kids' pony rides. Any event where horses gather is banned, except for in WA.

Over here in the west, it might actually help our thoroughbred industry, though. We'll be the only state with an almost full contingent of breeding stallions. (Only two can't get here.) Therefore we'll have a fairly normal year. Our yearling sales will be less competitive for entry in 2009, since there will be less eastern bred horses vying for places. Hopefully, it will mean bigger returns for local breeders that year.

It's still a very wrong and suckful way to get it, though.

I want my safe world back.

Metaphorically, of course.

My job has been made immeasurably more difficult over the last few days by the fact that some idiot in a Quarantine station cannot do their job properly.

Equine Influenza has made it's nasty way into Australia. It's not generally fatal to healthy, adult horses, but it kills foals fast and causes all sort of problems in terms of training, breeding and general horse keeping. To horses that have never built immunity, it is far more dangerous. Just keep in mind what the common cold did to the Inuit population when they first came into contact with it.

( These are apparently the strictest quarantine procedures in the world?. )

I adore my other half. To bits even. He's the most caring man alive, but sometimes I just want to smack him upside the head.

I dropped my mobile phone in a puddle. Long story involving a little pocket and a feral horse that dragged me around. By the time I saw it, poor Phone was sunk.

I loved my phone. It was old and had a see through case with a pic of Fraser on the back and it was functional. Plus, it was pre paid, so I always had to think about whether I really needed to make that call. A very good thing for me.

I tried to rescue Phone, but he was drownded. Fraser had bled red ink all over the soggy paper and had to be thrown away.

Drying Phone out didn't help. So husband offered to get me a replacement. I told him it had to be yellow, or something well funky, but even so to make sure it was returnable or just wait.

So he went and got a generic looking Nokia on a plan that costs more than the credit I use in any given month and IT'S NOT RETURNABLE!

GO HUSBAND!

To make it up to me he wound the car window up on my finger tonight and now I have an injury to go with the insult.

But at least I have bluetooth. So there's an upside. Also? He's very sorry. This means I won't have to make a cup of tea for weeks.

Like I said, gotta love em.

What a kerfuffle with the journals being suspended and the mad panics about interests and locking down journals. ( Just a tiny rant since everybody's already said it better than I can. )

It seems I must make an apology of my own. I read this about why Chelly didn't shake hands.

I can see how that would happen. So, yeah. Sorry Chelly. I'm still sad about it, but I don't hate you. You can go back on my jersey list, even. Only you have to start back at the bottom, just in case you break my heart again. Forgiveness is a slow process for me, even when I'm wrong.

The Ducks are making me happy. Like happy happy! \O/ That kind of happy. I hope it lasts.( Hockey stuff that isn't all about my hormonal reaction to it. )

5 More sleeps until I see my Frog again!!! It would be 6, only the last night I'll be on a plane and therefore definitely not sleeping.

ETA: I've been looking around and I've gone and gotten a GreatestJournal and an InsaneJournal just because I don't want to miss out on having my own name if I need to follow the good fic around. Also, like the Chelly thing, I'm slow to forgive. It's a wait and see.

Today’s word is bought to you by Chris Chelios. *sob*

The word is Druxy.

It describes something which looks good on the outside but is rotten on the inside.

( Small Chelly rant. )

I did something really stupid today. It made me appreciate hockey players even more. Yes, I’m that obsessed with hockey. What of it?
( Dumb thing to do. )

My Fleury jersey and Frog’s Crosby one arrived on Friday. I haven’t opened Crosby, just popped it in a box and mailed it so that Frog can meet me at the airport in 9 DAYS!!! \O/

I wore Fleury on the weekend and got lots of comments about the immense coolness of the design. Pity no one knew who Flower is…

On Sunday my boss took all of us to see a show called “Spirit of the Horse.”
( Stuff about that. )

I'm pretty much done with writing for this month now. There's way too much hockey on here. Not as in too much for my liking, but too much to have time to write. Besides there's only like one day left and I couldn't possibly catch up.

I've been on a very crappy diet hockey wise all season and this week the Foxtel people finally buy a clue! I'm getting like EVERY SINGLE PLAYOFF GAME!! Of course they waited until the Penguins got booted, just to piss me off.

So. GO DUCKS!

The one and only good thing about playoff beards? Teemu Selanne suddenly got a whole lot better looking. Everyone else needs a shave. :p

I think it was aukestrel who said that playoff hockey was a whole 'nother thing. And I doubted. I was sooo wrong. My poor heart is doing triple it's normal workload. I love it immensely.

But yeah, I'll potter around with the remaining prompts on the table anyway, but they'll be royally late.

Plus, I got one I've had kicking around for literally months back from beta and that will be postable in a couple of days.

Then there's the long Froggy phone calls and the having a job thing and the husband who feeds A WHOLE BOTTLE OF MILK to the cats and then wonders why they can't make it to the litter tray... Did I mention that I have SIX cats?

C'est la vie.

I heard on the radio that there are plans to give all movies that show someone smoking an R rating. Is it just me, or is that seriously over the top?

It's okay to show people drinking and driving with a PG rating. It's okay to show people getting away with murder in shows that are watched primarily by teenagers. It's okay to show gory anti speeding ads during prime time when children are watching and folks are eating their dinner in front of the tele, but Breakfast at Tiffany's will be R rated!

Talk about skewed priorities.

Yes, smoking is bad for you, but nobody ever had one too many cigarettes and went home to beat their wife up, or ran down a pedestrian on the way home because they had a lung full of nicotine. With all the anti smoking campaigns around, I think the message should be clear enough without this.  There's worse antisocial behaviour to pick on than that.

People who say weary when they mean wary. I always ask if they're tired of the thing they're talking about. Never sinks in though.

People who write things like...6am in the morning. Well, duh! it's not 6am in the afternoon, is it?

Dial up internet. So freaking slow and it cuts out every four hours...unless someone rings and disconnects you first. I'm over it!

Bosses who want you to have a practically wild baby horse ready for a traumatic event in a few days and then asks if we could maybe trim their feet straight after  we brand them. Well, yeah. if you've got a death wish and you never want to catch the poor little bugger again. But I'm not doing it.

Daylight saving. It is NOT natural to go to work in the morning with my headlights on at this time of the year and have the sun in my eyes at 8:30pm. (In the evening. hardy ha ha)

Writer's block. Which might explain why I'm irritable in the first place.

Little Frog and I were having a cozy night in front of the television because it's only a couple of days until she flies away.

So there we were, sharing couch space and Queer As Folk. Not uncommon for us.

And then, BOOM! Trauma hit. I saw Sandor in a towel!
( Grossness )

Got home last night, exhausted and brain dead from working like some kind of maniac.

Gave my flist a cursory lookie and toddled off to bed with all intentions of going through it properly tonight.

So naturally I had a friend come over for drinks right after work and then there was my internet connection of which there was none until now. Which is, of course, bed time.

I need a F/K porn fix and I don't have time.

This is suckful. I just had to whine about it before bed.

Night all!

So. You know when you suffer from lethologica (can't remeber a word for something) and you really, really want that word to come to you? So much that you start to obsess about it? That's called loganamnosis.

Cool, huh? Now I have two words for when I can't remember other ones. I win!

( Boring stuff about...stuff )

You know when you really want to thump someone for something bad they did? But you don't, because that's not nice. Well every now and then karma steps in perfectly and makes it all okay.

There's this guy who bought a mare to us to be covered and he had a car full of cute little Jack Russel Terriers. (Which I think is rude to start with, bringing a load of dogs onto someone's horse property without asking.) While we were unloading the mare, the farm Dalmatian came down to see what was going on and the Jack Russels started barking and going crazy, which spooked the horse. No problem for me, I deal with worse nutbags than she was. The guy opens the car door, leans in and starts belting the hell out of the dogs. They were yelping and he kept hitting them.

Now remember that I am an employee at this farm and this guy is a client. I took the mare away as fast as I could so I didn't crawl in and thump the hell out of him, and when I came back I didn't even speak to him, just handed him his headcollar and walked away. He probably thought I was rude, but I figure if he knew how much I wanted to deck him, he'd have been glad I chose not to speak.

A week later, he comes to pick his mare up and he's got broken ribs. I still wasn't speaking to him, but the boss asked what happened. Here's the good bit. He was walking along and tripped over the dogs' water bowl, fell and broke two ribs.

Is it uncharitable that I laughed my arse off?

Lack of sleep does things to me. Mostly it makes me cranky, but it also makes me think about things in a different way.

Today I got cranky about how we have to change the way we say things to prevent people from feeling bad. As if the words are the problem, and not the way people use them.
( Rant behind the cut )