Linguist's Lair

iskandra @ 2009-09-29T12:07:00

2009-09-29T17:07:31Z

is waiting at the airport for the flight home...and tomorrow, work...

iskandra @ 2009-09-29T08:39:00

2009-09-29T13:39:53Z

just met a Big Issue vendor accompanied by his cat-a totally cool ginger tom charming everyone.

iskandra @ 2009-09-28T04:29:00

2009-09-28T09:29:04Z

can see the Severn...goodbye Wales...and this coach is full of twats!

iskandra @ 2009-09-27T09:12:00

2009-09-27T14:12:54Z

MAJOR FAIL. Of course some'IT'guy wanted to'help'me with'the internets'.Treated him to 10mins. of MY knowledge

iskandra @ 2009-09-26T09:52:00

2009-09-26T14:52:37Z

Hellhawk boring me to death in John Lewis fitting rooms.'does me butt look fat?' The girl.

iskandra @ 2009-09-20T11:31:00

2009-09-20T16:31:03Z

On the way back from Rhosili-lovely sunny day-but no mobile reception ;) (WHY did I bring GLOVES?)

iskandra @ 2009-09-19T11:21:00

2009-09-19T16:21:52Z

OH NOES!! They don't have Tetley's Earl Grey Vanilla anymore! *whine*

iskandra @ 2009-09-18T10:25:00

2009-09-18T15:25:54Z

is sitting in a pub now, enjoying a pint of Brains. It's COLD outside!

iskandra @ 2009-09-16T10:31:00

2009-09-16T15:31:28Z

is almost in Swansea-5 more mins. on the train...no more rain yet!

iskandra @ 2009-09-15T14:19:00

2009-09-15T19:19:21Z

Just finished a delicious Japanese meal here in London-tomorrow,onwards to Wales!

iskandra @ 2009-09-14T18:32:00

2009-09-14T23:32:00Z

Beep! Test text from mobile

A geeky posting test

2009-09-07T22:08:05Z

I hope this is working...otherwise this will end
up as a really silly
status message on the wrong sites :) Nothing serious, just trying out
the ping.fm posting syntax.

Torchwood again

2009-07-24T21:12:54Z

Sorry, still pissed off.

Torchwood

2009-07-10T22:59:30Z

Gutted. Sorry, nothing else to say.

Rorschach costume

2009-05-09T14:00:49Z

Rorschach costume, originally uploaded by Alyx Sands.

...and the other half. I even carried hand-wrapped sugar cubes in my pockets. And a little flashlight.

Walter Kovacs, Prophet of Doom

2009-05-09T13:59:21Z

Walter Kovacs, Prophet of Doom, originally uploaded by Alyx Sands.

Yes, there was yet another FedCon this year, and I managed to do TWO costumes. Well actually only one... Or two halves of the same?

Um, er....what???

2008-11-25T20:08:42Z

I guess I should be concerned....

Alexandra Velten's Dewey Decimal Section:

067 Organizations in eastern Europe; in Russia

Alexandra Velten's birthday: 9/5/1972 = 95+1972 = 2067

Class:
000 Computer Science, Information & General Works

Contains:
Encyclopedias, magazines, journals and books with quotations.

What it says about you:
You are very informative and up to date. You're working on living in the here and now, not the past. You go through a lot of changes. When you make a decision you can be very sure of yourself, maybe even stubborn, but your friends appreciate your honesty and resolve.

Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com

In case you ARE wondering, Dewey's is a system of library classification!

Torchwood Shooting 26/09/08

2008-10-12T19:56:16Z

Torchwood Shooting 26/09/08, clapper board, originally uploaded by Alyx Sands.

Yay me. I finally got around to uploading and sorting my Cardiff and Swansea pics. I was stuck in translating and editing as well as admin work until yesterday, so this is the first sign of life from me in a while. Apologies. Go to this Flickr set to enjoy my pics of the location shoot on September 26, and this one for general random Torchwood stuff.

Torchwood filming

2008-09-26T09:53:44Z

Torchwood filming, originally uploaded by Alyx Sands.

Gone off to locate where the actual filming is. This is from my hotel window.

Found a blue box....

2008-09-13T17:03:36Z

My reason for being afraid of flying

2008-09-11T12:01:02Z

Every September 11, I get reminded of that-it's not terrorists I'm afraid of, but my very own September 11-in 1999.

Read all of it here!

If anyone wants to do some plane spotting, the little bugger is still around and causes happiness. It's registration is G-UKFC, and you can even buy it as a MODEL PLANE (Herpa does these detailed tiny model planes that are based on a real plane complete with registration, and the Air UK Fokker 100 is MINE. I have two of them. I keep thinking I should do something bad to one of them...)

I can offer that from a report I found years later:
"DATE: 11.09.1999 LOCALTIME: afternoon LOCATION: Frankfurt Int´l AP/Germany AIRLINE: KLM uk TYPE: Fokker F-100 REGISTRATION: G-UKFC C/N: 11263 AGE: 7 years OPERATION: ISP FLIGHT: Frankfurt - London (UK2291) OCCUPANTS: 88 occupants FATALITIES: 0 INJURIES: 0 DAMAGE TO AIRCRAFT: minor While on climb out, smoke was reported in the cockpit and the cabin. The aircraft turned back to FRA and made an emergency landing at rwy 18. Reportedly, nobody was hurt."

Runway 18 is Startbahn West-I'm still very much into planes and airports and stuff, which doesn't help.I'm almost okay with flights to the UK, because they're fairly short (yes, I know, that doesn't make them less dangerous as take off and landing are the most crucial parts), but flying to Egypt every year is downright terrifying. I take medication. It sucks. I still read the forum of the PPRuNe (google it!) and I have even, on occasion, said something. My title there is scaredy-cat. I paid for it. Talk about some weird kind of love-hate-relationship I have to planes.

Here you can see the little bugger about four months before it annoyed the hell out of me, also taking off from Frankfurt. That looks like runway 18 to me, too. It already had the KLM livery, just as I got to know it-my model plane still has what I had originally booked-Air UK.

Click Here to view the photo

(Due to copyright reasons, I can just give the link).

I called the little Fokker (yes, please DO pronounce that with an American accent!) "new" in my story, as in, it looked and smelled new. But in fact, it was already 10 years old when I boarded it...so someone must have given it a make-over a short time before, as some of the other pics I've seen make it look extremely dirty and shabby. I know it says seven years in the snippet I quoted, but it was in fact first registered in 1989. And it wasn't quite afternoon either-well, I was STUCK at the airport until late afternoon, yes, but the flight itself was in the morning.

Oh, and I got two flight vouchers for it.
As compensation. Gee thanks. After 911, every little turbulence gets a whole truckload of psychologists to help you, and possibly lawyers (WTF???) too.

It's my birthday today....

2008-09-05T20:49:12Z

Blue on green 2, originally uploaded by Alyx Sands.

...and I'm feeling a bit blue, as always. I hate birthdays. I'm 36 now. *GROAN*

Mädchen

2008-08-06T18:26:35Z

Mädchen, originally uploaded by Alyx Sands.

In memoriam- a pic when she was still in good health.

Bye bye, Mädchen...

2008-08-06T17:09:04Z

I'm about to drive to the vet to have my old cat Mädchen put to sleep....during the last few weeks, she has grown weaker and weaker and today I couldn't bear it any longer. One of her eyes was suddenly blind today. She can't eat or drink any more and all the other ugly stuff that comes with senility. She's the mother of all our cats, and I'll bury her in the garden in the evening. May she rest in peace.
(userpic is my cat Tinker, who died in 2002 after getting run over by a car. He was one of Mädchen's sons.)

Edit: I'm back and have buried her in the garden. The vet said she must have been over 20 years old...that would mean that when she came to us she would have already been ten-AND she gave us several litters of kittens after that. Tough as old boots, the little one....

He can't be dead....

2008-05-08T12:28:22Z

I am devastated. A kind soul (thank you, Rand0m!) sent me this today:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1935822/Michael-de-Larrabeiti.html

He was the writer of three of my favourite books, The Borrible Trilogy. (His other books were fun to read as well, and all of them very unconventional and quirky). But the Borribles....yeah. I can safely say they were the books that influenced me most at around age 13. Lord of the Rings, yes-that influenced me in a totally different way. The Borribles were more visceral, both in a literal and metaphorical sense, and I don't mean that in a bad way. I am the proud owner of every edition in English that has ever been in print, including a review copy from 1976, as well as every German edition. Yes, of the same three books. I also have an extensive collection of "location photos" from these novels, as they are all set in London. You can have a look at them here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alyxsands/collections/72157603184637515/

I always dreamed of meeting that man one day, and I had actually toyed with the idea of getting into contact with him for a meeting in September when I'd be in Oxford (if I were able to get the necessary time and money to actually go.).

I feel sad in a very profound way.