bending_sickle | An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one.* (Reply)

I got my fiscal code today \o/ This is the number that represents me whenever I get paid for anything. And as shocking as it is to say, the whole waiting and bureaucracy thing went amazingly well.

I left Internship early so that I could get to the Government Office before they opened - and thus before the rush - so that I'd be sure to get a number. When I got there, speedwalking because I missed my bus stop - well, not so much missed as recognized and beeped it too late for the bus driver to stop - there were already people there and I was choking down my sandwich. A guy who looked like a shorter, softer version of Brian Austin reen gave me a slip of paper with 22 scribbled on it while a scruffy past-middle-aged man in camuflague from head to toe was sticking up hooks on the office's gate to hold more torn strips of numbers.

The most wonderful thing of this forward-thinking action was that both men were civilians and not employees of the office. You see, even though once you get into the office you get given a number, there's the problem where you have a lot of people standing around the locked entrance for an hour before the office opens, and they're not stereotypical-English and as such don't have that ingrained must queue chip, which leads to much elbow pushing and "I was here first!" and so forth.

Whilst standing in line, I chatted with a Portuguese woman and what I'm guessing was her Italian son (although both spoke to each other in Spanish) about bureaucracy in Italy, and with a Greek woman and a tall German woman about procedure once inside. The hour-long wait didn't go by so bad.

Minutes before the office opened, the scruffy man started belting out instructions, like, "Pregnant women go in first! As do people with disabilites and so forth! Everyone else, line up! Find the person with the number prior to yours and get to it!" And true enough, we all lined up - I got given number 16 by a pair of Philippine girls who decided, hey, they just need one number for the two of them - and as the door opened, the scruffy man called out the number each person going in had.

Then once in the office I got a number for my particular section and waited for what turned out to be a short while before heading off to the counter. The woman I got was again, shocking nice for a public bureaucratic position. I mean, she made jokes! And the whole thing just took a few minutes then, wham, I can has number!

Sickle's Photographs I've Been Meaning to Post for Ages:

Nanowrimo 2009 - Time for Something Biblical

See anything? Apart from the Dodo of Doom, wobbly headed ~~geisha doll~~ tortoise and random postcards.

Yeah, baby!

See what I meant about ruining the format? It's a fine format for a PDF, but not so much for a book. I fixed that for Nano-2010 (except for that one page, argh).

Christmas Haul, 2010

Boooooks! I picked the first three, and my brother bought me the two middle ones. The last one was a gift from a friend. I warp-sped through the first three and I've been stumped on the fourth one for weeks now, not really feeling it.

A ring-thing! Of course, like that, without any rings, it looks a bit like a horrifying zombie hand reaching out to grab me... Um, thanks mom!

This keychain was a gift from a friend, but let's forget about that because the second I saw it, I knew what it really was. It's the keychain Time... Steve gave Chip, and which he still carries with him even though the keys are useless. My squee and Steve/Chip OTP, let me show you it.

My darling

seschat gave me this, along with another one of who I want to say is Clark Gable. It is too awesome, isn't it? ♥

Street Artist or Really Bored Child in My Neighbourhood

Meme: Good Things:

Day 10: Swan Lake at the Teatro dell'Opera!
Day 11: Excuse for increased consumption of chocolate FTW!
Day 12: Bureaucracy win! *shimmies* I has fiscal code!

Links of the Day:
Supernatural:

adrenalineshots' Review Unforgiven

verdande_mi's Review Unforgiven

bardicvoice's Review Like a Virgin

ontd_spnparty's Party Post Unforgiven

fandomsecrets' Discussion on Dean and Castiel's attitudes and treatments of each other and how they've changed Thread 1, Thread 2

spn_hardcore's Comment Fic Meme Animalistic Behaviour

luchia13's Fic She Taught Every angel to Rearrange the Sky

cherie_morte's AU RPFic Not the Gumdrop Buttons

ordinaryink's Fanart for

cherie_morte's AU RPFic Along the Road to Anywhere

gaelicspirit's Fic On the Surface

judyku's Fic BtVS/Angel Crossover Divine Intervention

usmc75's Fic No More I Love Yous

theron09's Fic Too Green to Be Cool

huntersarchive's Fic My Wings are Made of Hay and Corn Husks

_bluebells's Fic It's Angels vs. Demons in the Backstreets

mia6363's Good Omens Crossover See No Evil

ina_ami's Fanmix Untitled: A Dean/Castiel Fanmix

jaded56's Fanmix A Rat in the Cage (Lucifer)

inthe_redshirt's Fanmix All I've Learned ; All These Ghosts

ckll's Fanvid Unforgiven

kellygirl2002's Fanvid I Can Do Anything I Want - Win!

hollieciccone's Fanvid The Hardest Part of Ending is Starting Again

hollieciccone's Fanvid Itsy Bitsy Spider - Recap for Unforiven
TikiTyler9's Fanvid Go Back to Sleep - 0.0
XdwlLisaX's Buffy the Vampire Slayer Fanvid Crossover If I Was Running, Crying, Scared - 0.0 Hello, new OTP.

bevwa's Fanvid I KNow There's Something More
Nyah86Production's Fanvid Castiel: The Funniest Angel in the Garrison - My love for Cas and Misha, let me show you it :D

pinkinfinity's Fanvid If You Seek Sammy
JessicaRae24's Fanvid - Abandon All Hope

mag_en_anonyme's Fanvid Supernatural, Knight Rider Style

ramoniciu's Fanart Header - The Hug

vicious_sock's Fanart Purple Prose

glenien's Fanart Wallpapers, Headers & Icons - The Hug

squishyball's Fanart Crack GIFs - \o/

toraloodle's Fanart Be My Valentien <3 (Dean/Castiel)

unatral_kreatur's Fanart Sam's First (And Last) Lesson Fishing

pandacowhipster's Fanart Sam/Cas Crack GIFs

friedariena's Fanart Dean/Castiel - 0.0

reverie18's Fanart Good and Evil

ginevra17's Icons Ruby 2.0

morgentau's Icons Sam - 6x13

dean_sam's flocked LA Con Quote - ...gotta build myself a tin hat, I guess ;) ; embeds of Wee!Jensen's Roles
tinkabell007's LA Con Jared - Clip
Affairs Magazine's - "Music in the show has been pulled back because of budget. Classic rock 'ain’t cheap y’all'." Aaaah.
Zap2It's Overheard at the Convention - So adorable!
Fangasm's Jammin' With Jensen and Jason

Doctor Who:

tennant_love's Tennant to be on a stamp
Craig Ferguson's The Late Late Show The "Lost" Cold Open - ♥! "It's all about the triumph of intellect and romance over brute force and cynicism." ; Beginning and Opening Monologue
Nancyblackett's Fanvid Moving Right Along

True Blood:
CoolSpotters' Products used on True Blood

Human Target:
TV Series Finale's Petition

Sherlock:

qthewetsprocket's Fic The Magic Touch

wordstrings' Fic The Paradox Series

Other Fandom:

fandomsecrets' Discussion on Harry Potter, Snape, and Liking good characters, as opposed to characters who are good

mediocrechick's Harry Potter Fanmix Harry Potter and the 38 Year-Old Virgin

magicallaw's Mad Dogs Picspam 1x01
Harrysparrow13's Star Trek Funny Interview: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, John Cho
JKL's Nathan Fillion on Jimmy Kimmel Live
Lauren Loves You's Song In Which Buffy Slays Edward
Gaeilgeabu's Dara O'Briain on Jonathan Ross speaking Irish Gaelic - Awesome!

Multifandom:

isapiens' Icons - Supernatural, Robin Hood, Sanctuary, The King's Speech, Back to the Future, Toy Story, Psych, Doctor Who, Casanova, Battlestar Galactica, SG-1, Dirty Jobs

thrux's Icons - Supernatural, Inception, etc.
BBC America's A Valentine Day's Gift Guide for Your Brit-Loving Sweetheart
YouTube's Kevin Pollak's Chat Show - With Supanatural and Castle guests

Random:

emerald_embers' Valentine's Day Poem - Win!

kylecassidy's Mock Cover (with "warning label for the sexually squeamish") of

greygirlbeast's The Red Tree

literaryquotes' Addictive Books Recommendations