Blog 120: Stupid B*tch

So I'm currently looking after a psycho dog and her owner's house. She's part alsatian, and then part something else, maybe greyhound or those lassie dogs...Something like that. But, to put it shortly, she's massive. When she jumps up on her hind legs she's as tall as me, and obviously, as she's a dog, she's way more powerful and dangerous than I am too.

However, she's also way less intelligent than me. She's clever for a dog - she can even open doors - but I'm clever for a human so I trump her intelligence-wise (well done Mike).

She's a bit naughty...the past two days I've come home from work to find that she's shredded socks, cartons of tomatoes, packs of pasta and then done a wee all over the bedroom carpet. So I've had to tell her off. I also have to tell her off when she 'play' bites (did you know the bite of a german shepherd has a force of 238 pounds?) and when she jumps up.

But if she was to figure out that she's actually way stronger than me, then I'm in trouble. When I tell her off, something in my mind says "This dog would own you if it was to get fed up of being told off..." I'm half expecting her to come upstairs while I sleep and put a pillow over my face and smother me until I pass away. Or maybe the owners will return to find half of me on the kitchen floor with the dog chewing away at my liver or other vital organ.

Before I go, here are some more facts that have given me a general impression of what German Shepherds and Alsatians are like throughout my life.

German Shepherds are a large sized dog, generally between 55 and 65 cm at the withers (shoulders) and weight between 22 and 40 kg. They have a domed forhead, a long square muzzle and a black nose. The jaws are strong, with a scissor-like bite.

An Australian report from 1999 shows German Sheperds are the third breed most likely to attack a person.

In the United States, one source suggests that German Shepher Dogs are responsible for more reported bitings than any other breed.

The bite of a German Shepherd has a force of over 238 pounds, compared to a human's puny 86.

They are not inclined to become immediate friends with strangers.

Bear those facts in mind.

Today I took her for an extra 20 minutes on her walk to try and tire her out so she can't get up to mischief... and she did seem to get tired. Now although she's a naughty dog, she's a good natured one, and so when we came across two massive alsatians, and I mean bigger than her massive. One of the alsatians stayed with the owner, the other one came charging and barking towards me and Luna.

So here comes this metre tall, 40 kilo dog, pounding towards me, snapping and barking it's strong, scissor like jaws in the most aggressive manor one can imagine, running straight for Luna. I hold her back, and the owner of the mad dog says "Don't worry it's just barking, it's fine."

He's now right in Luna's face, she's cowering, and then he goes to either bark right by her face, or what I saw as a snap. So there's a dog about to bite Luna, the owner, she's yelling "Stop, stop" and this massive monster just not listening. So I pull Luna just out of his way, and she ducks behinds my all of a sudden weedy looking legs. The dog continues to bark and snarl. So I hold out my figure, and firmly say NO.

The dog stops. Thing is with dogs, and I learnt this recently when we were training our new puppy Archie and when looking after Mac, the THING with dogs is that if you are firm with them, they listen. The crazy uncontrolled dogs you see are always the product of fuzzy wuzzy owners who love and spoil their dogs too much, and so it knows it can do whatever it likes without getting told off, so acts like a dog. If you're firm with them, they'll listen. So I firmly said NO without showing any signs of being scared, and the dog instantly stopped.

THEN, the owner comes over and she tells me off! She says "Alright, I can control my dogs, not you", sneering out of her stupid little face. "Can you?" I said, and walked off with poor ickle (yet still annoying for ripping my tomatoes) Luna.

THE CHEEK! Obviously, you can't control your dog, because it was barking and snapping and snarling at me and my dog. It's a huge dog, to have it walking around lead-less and snapping at everything is irresponsible and out of order, what if it attacked some children? So, I stopped it because I felt Luna was threatened, and she clearly felt threatened too. I didn't kick it, I didn't hit it, I didn't stab it in it's beady blood-lusting eyes, I just said NO, and it stopped. So don't tell me you can control your dog when you can't, and I have to do it for you.

Now you just have to figure out which character the title refers to :P

Blog 119: Holiday Diary 5

Spinazzola - Day 7 or 8

“SEX ISN’T THE MOST IMPORTANT THING! You are...”
That’s the lovely line at the end of American Pie 5, followed by the one who says this having sex with the one he says it to, so it’s instantly undermined by boobies, just like everything else in the world really.

That’s what I’m watching now by the way, and can I say that it’s the best part of my day, other than perhaps the drive to where we visited.

We went to Matera. For those of you who’ve seen the Passion of the Christ, (and I haven’t), Matera’s where it was filmed. And there’s literally nothing there. So that was my day today. Visiting a place where literally nothing ever happened. Jesus didn’t die there, but someone pretending to be him pretended to die there. That’s all. Also, Mel Gibson probably walked around there a bit.

And we saw where that went down.

Blog 118: Holiday Diary 4

Spinazzola - Day 6, probably?

So I have no idea what day we’re on. I think yesterday we went to a swimming pool with slides in, which was fun. I met some Canadians, and I asked them “What brings you guys out here in the middle of nowhere then?” meaning, why are you here and not someone where there’s loads to do, they answered “Vacation”. I didn’t speak to them again.

Today we walked around town a bit then had dinner with the extended ffffaaaammmmiiiillllyyyy. I realised there’s a band in Spinazzola that never stops playing. Literally. Just walks around all the time playing songs in their smart costumes playing songs non-stop. You have to be really mindful where they are in relation to you. If you’re in the street and you hear the band start playing behind you, then run, because if they catch you, the Tubas suck you in, because they don’t get any other chance to eat.
That’s all that’s happened today. I’m understandably bored.

Blog 117: Not Yorkshire

Some of my friends from Yorkshire joined a facebook group saying everywhere that isn't Yorkshire should just be called Not Yorkshire. If I lived in somewhere that wasn't Yorkshire, (which I do) I would be really proud. So yes, call it Not Yorkshire.

Please don't stop reading my blog if you are from Yorkshire...

Blog 116: Holiday Diary 3

Spinazzola - Day 4

You may have figured out there’s no pattern as to which day I write this li’l travel journal on. Obviously, 1,3,4, isn’t a pattern, probably. And if it is, then I’m not intending it. It’s literally when I have nothing else to do.

As I implied yesterday, today was spent milling around in the house watching films. Somehow I’ve managed to eat two peaches, which, put together were literally the size of my head. I’ve also managed to only watch 2 films between 10am and 6.30pm. I watched American Pie 2 followed by The Hills Have Eyes. Because you really needed to know that. I’m also about halfway through The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe, the sequel to The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Universe. I wish Douglas Adams didn’t have such long book names. Unfortunately I don’t own a copy of Life, the Universe and Everything to read once this book’s finished.

I’ve also spent a large segment of my day worrying and pondering. I’ve worried about how I’ve done NO work towards my dissertation, even though I’ve had no time to do that work at all ever this holiday. I’ve also pondered and worried about how silly I can be. And furthermore, I’ve pondered how best to get the circular metal object off the chimney across the street and into my possession.

Some of you may have seen the new Captain America movie. I’m not going to pretend it’s as good as Thor was, or that it’s a must see, but it’s not bad. And the circular object across the street looks EXACTLY like his shield, minus the paint job.

So I want it. Simples. And I’ve tried to work out the most efficient and safest way to get it. I’ve taken photographs of the item and the surrounding area, I’ve done the maths, the science. And at the moment I can see three possibilities.

1) Get a massive ladder and climb up the building opposite and take it. Problems? People will definitely see. And seeing as I don’t technically own the item, that may be a problem. Even more so, I don’t own the building...

2) Construct a structure from wire culminating in a coathanger. The item has bits of wire attached, all of which loop back to the item and form lovely li’l twisty bits I can hook onto, like hooking ducks at a fair (that’s not a euphemism) or hooking chicks in a club (that is). If I was to create a huge wire stick thing and hook it, I can probably either pull it back to my rooftop, or at least knock it to the ground. Problems? Knocking it to the ground might kill my nan if she’s outside, and then how am I gonna eat? Also, the only wire in the area is supporting the aerial. If I take the wire down, the whole thing might collapse.

3) Jump to the other roof. It’s definitely doable. It’s about 2 metres away, but also 2 metres lower. The roof tiles don’t look real sturdy but there’s a whole patch where there aren’t any roof tiles! Problems? There’s no way of getting back. I’ve surveyed the surrounding landscape and the only way would be through someone’s house.

And so for the rest of this evening I shall be plotting. In fact, until I get the damn thing, that’s my holiday plans sorted.

Blog 115: Holiday Diary 2

Spinazzola - Day 3

So after 2 days at the beach we had a mahooosive lie in on day 3. We were in bed til 8.30!!! My parents are such squares.

And then we stayed home for a bit. Me and my sister watched Monsters Inc followed by half of Carrie, then we all had lunch and went to the swimming pool, which was nice because it was basically empty, and has green grass! ACTUAL GREEN GRASS.

But we began to slowly realise that the people who worked at the pool were horrifying racists. At first when I caught one of the gorgeous pool attendant ladies looking my way I thought, hello, this is good! Then I remembered my Mum and Dad were with me so left it well alone. And when they asked everyone to join in the darts and volleyball games, they left us out because they figured out that we were pasty white English people.

In the evening me and my brother went for a prowl, see who’s who and what’s going down. Well, literally nothing is going down, except DJ Fox was blasting out some blazin’ tarantella and the oldies were gettin’ jiggy wi’it. So we sat on a bench, looking for people our age to hang out with. Literally. Nobody. I’m glad I brought my laptop now.

Blog 114: Holiday Diary 1

Spinazzola - Day 1

So, obviously I’m on holiday, because I’m writing a diary, and if I wasn’t on holiday I definitely wouldn’t have time to do this. Oh wait, yes I would, because I’m a student. I forgot about that because literally NOTHING INTERESTING EVER HAPPENS.
But don’t worry, I’ve been up to my usual antics over summer, and that’s why I haven’t written a blog in a while I guess. So here’s my diary, all blogged up and ready to go, written on location.
The plan was go to Rome, spend 4 days there, and then drive to the south of Italy where my Dad was born to spend around 9 days there, even though it’s literally in the middle of nowhere. Now, when we were in Rome, we were busy, getting up to all sorts of notable activities. However, because we were busy, I didn’t have time to write a diary. But now that I’m doing nothing, I have time. But nothing to write about. That doesn’t stop the massive paragraph underneath though.
So today we went to the beach. By we I mean my Mum, Dad, Brosef Stephen and Sistef Laura, and then my Grandparents, I Nonni as there known in Italy: Nonno and Nonna.

The beach was nice. Sun, sand, umbrellas, bikinis, big bellies, wrinkly upper thighs and buttock area, girls with pit hair, girls with overgrown ahems and oh yeh, topless babes! And by topless babes, I mean old ladies with their tits dragging in the sand.

What to do on the beach!? So many options! Swim, cough up salt, get sand in your hair, walk around all pasty white next to the blackest white people you’ll EVER see or play with a bean bag. So we played bean bag, which involved throwing it to each other in the sea. It was actually really fun. Then we started rugby tackling waves until a hot girl came over and my brother got embarrassed. And then a perfectly ok day turned into the worst day of my life. My brother, my own brother, lost. My. Beanbag.
Then we came home, ate crackers and Philadelphia and cried into my straw hat which doesn’t quite fit my head but that’s ok because everyone just rests them on the top of their head anyways now. Dunno what’s gonna happen tonight. Probably just eat too much food and lie on the floor like Jabba, just without the bikini-clad princess. When in Rome.