What's the wisest advice you've heard from your

eldest?

I believe the stories that children are told when they innocently ask the dreadful question are different from country to country. I thought it would be fun to share ;)

In Spain, when daddies and mummies love each other a lot, babies are brought from Paris in the beak of the storks. That's all we get. Pretty nonsense, huh? Storks come to spend the summer here, I guess that winter born babies just drop from their nests or something :lol:

What's the story that's usually told in your country?

Sarah wanted to know a bit more about me so, even if late (again), I fulfilled her wish ;) Here comes the second part of it (first part here):

9. My favourite author is Arturo Perez-Reverte. I have every single book by him and I collect every single article and interview dedicated to him. He is also a great columnist, and I collect his weekly articles as well :D

Here you can see his Captain Alatriste series (a million times better than the movie, total disappointment to me even though Viggo Mortensen did a good job. For those who might have read the books: can you believe that Malatesta doesn't whistle in the movie? :o ) Duh I just noticed I left one book out of the picture but I wanted Renn to watch them, since we talked about them recently. I also include in the pic Cape Trafalgar (cause I want PT to read it) and one of the volumes that compile his work as a columnist (and because I love him like that I keep both the actual article clippings and the book that compiles them). There's just a tiny representation here, I wasn't in the mood to make a mess of my stuff :P

Other clippings I keep about topics that highly captivate me: Tintin, Marie Antoinette, Ken Follet, JRR Tolkien...

10. I was short sighted but one week ago I went through laser surgery on my eyes. It was... quite an experience. Having your eyeballs popped out of their sockets, sliced and burnt ain't a big fun, but the results are amazing. I previously needed to have my eyes checked out to know if they were suitable to perform surgery on. As a result of those checks, my pupils remained dilated for 3 days, so I looked like a cat. I should have taken a picture earlier, because by this stage they had shrunk a lot. Don't I look like a cat? :?

11. Can someone ever have enough stationery? I don't think so. I love it, I have tons of stuff so I'll just show you a bit and pretend I don't have ten times more :oops:

12. In the era of digital pictures kept in dvds, I still love to print those pictures I really like and arrange them in albums. Apart from the actual pictures, I collect a lot of tickets, brochures, knick-knacks and whatever I actually feel like keeping. Those that are suitable to be kept in albums, are properly arranged.

Sintra, Portugal.

Dublin, Ireland.

Cork, Ireland (Notice the Kilmeaden cheese, Sparky ;) )

Bus tickets around Ireland.

Cobh and Blarney, Ireland.

NY, USA.

Lisbon, Portugal.

Irish beach sand from Kerry County, Liberty Island earth, drop of Guinness beer from Guinness factory in Dublin, Empire State charm cent, Irish taps and marble... they might look random but they all have a special meaning to me :)

13. I regret having lost most of my spoken Irish. When I lived in Ireland, I was perfectly able to read it, speak it and understand it. Now all I've got are my certificates and a big laziness to grab my old books and study it again.

14. I like doing stuff with beads. I'm not good at it, but I make brooches for my niece, rings, bracelets, keychains and stuff.

15. I have around 1,000 Kinder Chocolate Eggs figurines collected. They are in the attic and I felt lazy to take better pics so these should do for now.

16. I hate going shopping, so anytime I find anything that I like, I buy it in several colours, especially summer clothes that are washed more often.

Summer stuff: same tops and skirts in different colours.

Winter stuff: 4 sets of pants +tops in different colours. After getting the first two, I decided to change the tops from shirts to jackets to pretend a bit :lol: Another couple of skirts and 6 linen pants, same model but different colour and patterns.

Ok. There are 22 short sleeve shirts, 14 spaguetti straps ones, then some other tops, 3 all season pants, 2 summer pants and 2 other summer pants. Each thing is exactly the same garment in different colours.

ánd just because people found it funny, some of my over 200 socks :lol: I have another two drawers, one for sport ones and another for plain ones.

So, that's all for my weirdness :D

Breaking news: Nex blog I'm going back to thought provoking ones so set your minds in the mood ;)

Results for the 5th round are as follows:

Pic #1 belongs to Robin
2 BM
3 PT
4 Gwen
5 Stacy
6 Hayley
7 JJ
8 BM
9 Intruder

There's been a tie again, and then I thought I had chosen a great intruder *sigh*. The winners are... *drum roll* Gwen and JJ :D Congratulations!

The score of the fifth round is as follows:

Gwen and JJ scored 9
Hayley, Robin and Stacy scored 6.
PT and Tiffany scored 3.
Adam scored 2.

The TOTAL SCORE for the 5 games so far is as follows:

JJ: 47.
Gwen: 42.
Hayley: 32.
Robin: 30.
PT: 20.

(With less games)

Burcu: 24.
Stacy: 20.
Gio: 17.
Ellen: 13.
Renn: 7.
Ashleigh: 6.
Alyssa: 4.
Tiffany: 4.
Sarah: 3.
Heather: 3.
Stacey: 3.
Charlie: 2.
Adam: 2.
Andre: 1.

Thanks all again for taking part :D

Ok, here we come with the 5th round, I guess that by now everybody knows that this is an inner game between the friends I talk to everyday in the forums: I asked them to submit me an old picture of themselves and it is as easy, or as hard, as to pair names with pictures ;)

I'd like to thank all of those who took part for being as generous as to dedicate some time and effort to search for pics and scan them :)

Anyway, rules are as follows: PM ME YOUR GUESSES. We all know who we are, so we are gonna obviously get our pic right and that would ruin the game putting 2 and 2 together. Other than that, feel free to leave whichever comment in here.

ALERT!! Since this time there are only 7 people taking part, I introduced two new features that make the game harder (blame Gwen, it was her idea):

1.There is one of us who appears in two pictures.
2. There is an intruder that is none of us.

So, the people depicted below are (in alphabetical order) :

BM, Gwen, Hayley, JJ, PT, Robin and Stacy (+duplicated person +intruder).

Time to guess! :D

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

Sarah wants to know a bit more about me so, even if late, I fulfilled her wish ;) I am making it in two blogs since I'm adding pictures and it got too long:

1. Even though I do not collect them, I keep those stamps that I like or that form part of a collection themselves. I do not tear them apart from any letter that's been addressed to me, but I deal with the mail at work so that's my main source. I think it's a pity that stamps are being substituted by pre-paid postages or those hideous post office tampons :(

2. I love the feeling of a long relaxing bath and I like using bath salts, bubble bath, scented oil pearls and whatnot. I always keep a good stash because the ones in the bathroom disappear fast ;)

3. I like to save. I've always been pretty cautious so apart from a safety box I have several piggy banks where I keep small fortunes ;)

4. Last year, a friend of mine got two goldfish for me and pretty unexpectedly I grew up really fond of them, to the point that I have 7 already (and I'm planning on getting an algae eater and two others soon). Someone just built a new and bigger fish-tank for me. The water distorts the proportions so it looks tiny but here it is:

5. My dad was an avid reader of Old West paperback novels. There was this place where he would buy, let's say 20, and then just exchange them over and over again. I read them after him and became obsessed with the Far West and Billy the Kid. Someone bought me a (of course) fake gun, that I used to keep under my pillow at night :oops: I decorated the box where I currently keep it.

6. This is actually one of the boxes where my bath stuff is kept. Not exactly the best example, but I love wrapping presents and I recycle the wrapping paper to use it on boxes for myself.

7. I love writing letters, postcards, whatever. In the era of the e-mails I refuse to give up on traditional hand written stamped post. Granted it takes longer and it usually gets lost, but the feeling of getting a letter in the mail box is something that makes my day. I keep all and every letter that's been addressed to me ever since I was a kid, I keep the letters that my nephews and niece have sent to Santa Claus along the years, and I also keep some that I've sent myself to Santa Claus, to my parents and to my bf. This box contains some 500 that I sent from Ireland.

8. Together with my love for reading came my love for writing. Since I was a kid I used to write stories, that turned into books in my Enid Blyton phase. Inspired by The Famous Five and so many others, I made myself, my friends and my dog the heroine of my stories :lol: I wrote some 25 only of this series. I know they look absolutely lame, but they are a little treasure to me. I sew the little booklets together, then glued them to the hard covers and I even made matching page markers. Finally, I also made boxes to keep them together :lol:

Hope I didn't scare anyone off ;)

s gResults for the 4th round are as follows:

Pic #1 belongs to Gio
2 Hayley
3 JJ
4 Gwen
5 BM
6 Stacy
7 Robin
8 PT

There's been a tie this time, looks like it was an easy round. The winners are... *drum roll* Burcu, Gwen, JJ, Robin and Stacy! :D Congratulations all!

The score of the fourth round is as follows:

Burcu, Gwen, JJ, Robin and Stacy scored 8.
Gio and Hayley scored 6.
PT scored 5.

The TOTAL SCORE for the 4 games so far is as follows:

JJ: 38.
Gwen: 33.
Hayley: 26.
Robin: 24.
PT: 17.
Gio: 17.

(With less games)

Burcu: 24.
Stacy: 14.
Ellen: 13.
Renn: 7.
Ashleigh: 6.
Alyssa: 4.
Sarah: 3.
Heather: 3.
Stacey: 3.
Charlie: 2.
Andre: 1.
Tiffany: 1.

Thanks all again for taking part :D There'll be a new round up as soon as I gather pics. I have just 4 so far.

Ok, here we come with the 4th round, I guess this will go on until somebody beats JJ or until you guys run out of pictures :lol: Basically, I proposed this game to the friends I talk to everyday in the forums, and I'm lucky a lot of them liked the idea: I asked them to submit me an old picture of themselves and it is as easy, or as hard, as to pair names with pictures ;)

I'd like to thank all of those who took part for being as generous as to dedicate some time and effort to search for pics and scan them :)

For my GameSpot friends and all tv.commers who don't frequent the CSI:NY forum, you can try and I guess who I am. I have posted some pics of myself and I think my old me is a total give away of my present self, although I guess we all think so and it isn't actually that easy :P

Anyway, rules are as follows: PM ME YOUR GUESSES. We all know who we are, so we are gonna obviously get our pic right and that would ruin the game putting 2 and 2 together. Other than that, feel free to leave whichever comment in here ;)

So, the people depicted below are (in alphabetical order) ;) :

BM, Gio, Gwen, Hayley, JJ, PT, Robin and Stacy.

Time to guess! :D

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Results for the 3rd round are as follows:

Pic #1 belongs to PT
2 Gio
3 Robin
4 Gwen
5 Renn
6 Marissa
7 Burcu
8 Stacy
9 Hayley
10 JJ
11 Andre
12 BM

And the winner is.... *drum roll* JJ! :D Congratulations again!

The score of the third round is as follows:

JJ scored 12.
Hayley and Burcu scored 10.
Gwen scored 9.
Robin scored 7.
Renn scored 5.
Gio, PT and Stacy scored 4.
Marissa scored 2.
Andre has no voted yet.

The TOTAL SCORE for the 3 games so far is as follows:

JJ: 30.
Gwen: 25.
Hayley: 20.
Robin: 16.
PT: 12.
Gio: 11.

(With less games)

Burcu: 16.
Ellen: 13.
Renn: 7.
Ashleigh: 6.
Stacy: 6.
Alyssa: 4.
Sarah: 3.
Heather: 3.
Stacey: 3.
Charlie: 2.
Andre: 1.

4th round is up and running. Have fun :D