18th March 2024

Exciting News!

I have four pieces of exciting news!
1) I cracked an egg with a double yolk yesterday!! It was fucking awesome!!! It felt a waste to have done it at McDonald's, but still, it was SICK.
2) I got my first follower on NeoCities today! Their site is here.
3) I've found potential evidence of Australian English having had rhoticity in its early stages!!! This would be fucking AMAZING if true!!! I love rhoticity (unless North Americans do it), and so if I find out my ancestors' dialect was rhotic at some stage in history, I will explode with happiness.
4)I'M GOING TO ICELAND!!!!!
Okay okay, so here's the schedule.
  • 16th September - ME AND MY FAMILY GO TO ICELAND!
  • 1st October - ME AND MY PARENTS TO GO SVALBARD!
  • 6th October - I GO TO ENGLAND!

    • I'm so hyped for this holiday, it's gonna be the BEST! I've never been overseas before (except for when I was a toddler, my family took me to New Zealand, so I basically wasn't there and also it basically wasn't overseas) so I'm SUUUUUPER excited for this holiday to come. The furthest I've travelled is Brisbane (I've got a whole story about that), and my most recent holiday was to Melbourne in December 2022 to see Jacob Collier (still the coolest night of my entire life). I'm so excited to go to Iceland! It's gonna be so awesome!!! I'm so hyped!!!
    There are a few places I absolutely have to go, that I will NOT say no to going to:
  • The Iceland Phallological Museum (Hið Íslenzka Reðasafn)
  • The Icelandic Sea Monster Museum & Coffee Shop (Skrímslasetrið)
  • The Library of Water (Vatnasafn)
  • Diamond Beach
  • Skemmtigarðurinn Grafarvogi
  • The Settlement Exhibition
  • The Monument to the Unknown Beurocrat
  • Bókin
  • Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur
  • The Bridge Between Continents

    • Then after that we're gonna spend a few days in Svalbard! My mum and I have been dreaming of taking a holiday to Svalbard together since I was a wee tot (about 3-4 years ago), so it's good that we get to have that dream come true in some form. I dunno what exactly we're gonna do there, but it's gonna be cool.
    And then I get to spend a week alone in England! Frankly, that should be scary, but I'm not scared yet because I'm too excited. I'm gonna have a grand old time, I'm gonna spend a day or two down in the West Country for the explicit purpose of listening to the West Country dialect (I'm gonna have to look into where it's still strongest, and plan my stay around those areas), and I'm gonna meet up with my friend Josh, whom I met on Twitter a few years ago and have kept in contact with ever since. The places I wanna go in London include:
  • The Crystal Palace Dinosaurs
  • Queer Britain
  • The Osterley Bookshop
  • The Museum of Brands
  • The Natural History Museum
  • Word on the Water
  • The Grant Museum of Zoology
  • Novelty Automation
  • The Russell Square Cabman's Shelter
  • The Village Underground (I'm hoping something good's on there whilst I'm in England)
  • Leadenhall Market
  • The Columbia Road shops
  • Moss Lane and Moss Close

    • As you can probably tell, I always get my travel ideas from Atlas Obscura. I've loved that site ever since 2019 or so.
    The reason for me wanting to visit Moss Lane and Moss Close, two perfectly ordinary streets in northwest London, is simple: that's where one of my favourite Michael Rosen stories, The Go-Kart, went down. He mentions the streets by name in the story, and once when I was reciting the story to my late nanna, she said "ooh yes, I've been there!" when I mentioned Moss Lane; the corrected my pronunciation of "Moss Close" (it's pronounced "close", not "close"); and when I got to the bit where Michael says "at the end of Moss Lane, there's Moss Close, and that's where the road turns..." she nodded her head and said "yes, that's right..." She died about a month ago I think, probably a little over a month ago now. So I'm going there simultaneously to remember her in some odd way, and to actually see the road where that story takes place. I think on Wednesday I might write a journal entry about my favourite Michael Rosen stories. I always imagined Moss Lane as being on an obscenely steep solitary hill, with a little shed on top where Michael and Harrybo do all their tinkering. It's a completely illogical way for a road to be, but apparently my subconscious doesn't care for urban planning.
    Anyway, enough travel talk.
    I realised a little while ago that like a third of the journal entries I had before now were vents. That's purely because I only had three, and one of them was a vent, but still! I want these to be a time capsule of my entire range of emotions and stuff, not just a void to scream into. That's what (insert comedy here) is for!
    I've recently gotten into a whole new cast of YouTubers to binge. I've rediscovered my love for Max Fosh and Hamish & Andy, gotten into Athena P, and omg I am OBSESSED with Jet Lag: The Game. Like, I got a Nebula subscription JUST to watch the next episode a week early. Great value too, only $5 a month!
    I've lately gotten really interested in doing more YouTube stuff. Like, I want to do my own version of Jet Lag, I want to do dumb challenges like Max Fosh and Hamish & Andy, I want to review movies like Athena P...ever since I saw Chicken Run 2: Dawn of the Nugget I knew I had to make a video reviewing it, cuz that movie is WILD. I have to make it before it's too late. Have you ever noticed how artfully Chicken Run uses dialect to form its characters? It's a fucking masterclass in dialect. I've always wanted to read this one paper about how the Flemish dub also implicates different regional dialects and stereotypes in its voice acting, which is an amazing amount of effort for a dub of an animated film to go to. I've sadly never been able to get my hands on that paper...if I ever visit Gent, I'll be sure to grab it.
    Anyway, goodnight.