Ya wake up one morning and you find you're a thug blowing smoke rings in some dive.

• Protect yourself against the most common venereal disease (courtesy kellydamnit).

• Sample Cover Letter for Journal Manuscript Resubmissions (courtesy deeply_spurious).

• My idea of DIY (courtesy redcountess).

Damn, I forgot to bring my black nail polish. I was going to put it on leaving work so I'd have one less thing to do on the spot for B-Movie. arkady and I shall be attending, and redcountess is frantically gathering the spoons to do so as well. \o/

Neo peed on the bedroom floor again yesterday. It's unfortunate that this is a hoax. It's only his incredible cuteness that stands between him and a future as mittens and pie. Mmm, pie. Update: He puked at the base of the bed too. Yay for babies!

And now, the weekend poll!

[Poll #590197]

Tonight or tomorrow will be a Date with Arkady. If it's tonight, then tomorrow I plan to attend Slimelight with pixel_person, who has just moved to London to be an artist, model and photographic genius and who I hope to see much more.

Update: Can't work out what to wear? Sort it all out in this order:

• Nice Boots
• Makeup/hair
• Underwear
• Skirt
• Top

You can stop at any of these stages and your appearance will be JUST FINE! And probably suit the likely temperature inside B-Movie.

Update 2: Black nail polish secured from Boots and now living in work bag — cheers to kelemvor for the tip!

My photo policy.

A few people have asked about this.

Update: new version at http://reddragdiva.co.uk/policy.html.

1. I am not out to piss people off, because I want to keep being allowed to take their photo for online use.
2. If I take your photo when we're out, I generally want to put it online.
3. I try to ask first, though if you're being particularly photogenic I might take a pic and then ask your approval. If I forget, please forgive me and I will take it down if asked.
4. If you don't want it online, please tell me. I may still want to have a pic just because I think you're aesthetically marvellous.
5. Even if the preview is awful, the photo might not be at all. See next rule if it is.
6. If you see a photo online on my photo site that you utterly despise, let me know fairly promptly and I'll probably take it down. (If you say six months later that you utterly despise it, I will be reluctant to.)
7. If you hate all photographs, please let me know. (If you're in a large crowd shot in a public place, I will be reluctant to take the shot down because of it.)
8. All the above is subject to variation within reason and good sense. The first rule is the important one.
9. Feel free to use your image for icons, your own sites, etc. (Please let me know and add a credit.) Original camera JPEG available on request. I have a photo printer now and would be most pleased to do an A4 print of a picture of you that you really like.

Any questions? (The above wording may change as people ask for clarifications.)

The above is slightly at variation with arkady's photo policy (main difference is the takedown policy), so in general if I'm taking the pics I'll be putting them on my space rather than hers.

(Taking photos of goths is generally not problematic — cameras are to goths as tuna is to cats. Goths like to feel aesthetically appreciated.)