Alpaca alarm, regretsy, and energy music

Alpacas make odd noises when they're alarmed. They sound part like a bird of prey, part like an angry donkey. I've never managed to record one before, so when Edith was annoyed the other day I picked up my camera and filmed. The view isn't very good because I was sitting at my desk with my window open -- I just wanted to get the sound.

Edith is the further away of the two adult alpacas on this side of the fence. We don't know what upset her, but she's been very tetchy ever since these three girls were moved away from the main herd, and Jabberwocky annoys her in the evenings by running round and round her very fast. I think the donkey-ness of this alarm call suggests as much anger as genuine worry.

Ever since I have been following Regretsy I have been inspired by the "WTF Alchemy requests" and want to commission my own mad celebrity fights animal picture. This person wants to decorate their home with Charles Bronson beating up a shark while a dinosaur roars in the background; but Lady Gaga eating a unicorn is better. I do like the way that almost anything is on etsy; it's the ebay of crafts. The chances are that if I decided I wanted a picture of Michael Hutchence dancing the tango with a bear while watched by vultures it would already exist.

Actually I just checked and it doesn't, but I did somehow get sidetracked into the world of fish portraiture and traditional Japanese fish printing. (Good slogan by the way.)

The freelance work I'm doing at the moment is very dull, and also very similar to the actual paid jobs I've done for the last six years or so, which is giving me pause, because I'm currently doing it for much better money. But I will have to sort out my own tax, which leads to the question: will I be able to claim Lady Gaga's Fame Monster as a legitimate business expense? I really would work much less well without it. Yesterday for work purposes I bought a BWO album which turned out to be below their usual standards (too many ballads) but had a few excellent songs on it. Here's the video for one of them: the beautiful Martin has to sit in the back of the car while the grown-ups drive.

And today I bought for a fiver off of Amazon MP3 the Clubber's Guide to Summer 2010. I love this one with very clear Soulwax input -- Soulwax are great. Start it playing and then get on with some data entry, and you will see what I mean.