Aunt Cat x 3

It seems to be baby season over here. Cat has pipped Sal by becoming an Aunt for the third time. Well an Aunt for the first time she is already and Uncle x 2. Cat's niece was born this morning and is called Ffion Haf. Her big brothers are Ioan and Aled.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, Its Back to Rants I Go

I realised today that I am a bit short on rants on my site. As this was the whole point of the site, I thought I had better sort it out.

Rant 9 - Admittedly, I put this up on Dave's Curse of Self Awareness page but it really deserves a rant as well. Why is it that people lose all sense of self awareness when they enter a grocery store? They stop in the middle of aisles, leave their children to climb on the vegetables, try to do u-turns with wonky wheeled trolleys. Admittedly, Sal and I made a mistake in going to Tesco on a Saturday morning but we were desperate. I can assure that I will eat my shoes before doing that again (and I love my shoes!). It was outrageous but the piece de resistance was a man standing at a display at the end of an aisle (so in the middle of one of the aisles that goes horizontally across the whole store) reading the ingredients in cheese or bacon or something. This man had his trolley sticking out at a 45 degree angle from his body basically blocking ¾ of the aisle. I stood back in amazement a) at the fact that he did this b) at the fact that people just quietly queued up to go around him and c) at the fact that he didn't even notice (or care) about the commotion he was causing! Augh.

If You are From There, You Just Know...

So, I am working from home today and flipping around the TV to keep me company. I stumble across this movie called Ghost Cat (aka Mrs. Ashboro's Cat - it is an HBO movie). It was going to change the channel bit then I started to think - man that has to be shot in Canada, probably the Maritimes. It just felt really familiar kinda like home. Anyway, I start searching the internet to see where it was filmed and lo and behold it felt like home because it is! It was filmed in Charlottetown last winter. So crap or not, I am watching it so I can get my PEI fill.

Aunt Sal x 2

Sally has become and aunt again. Her sister, Erica, had a little girl - Lila Grace - this morning. So Sally has rushed off to Eastbourne to see her new niece. Yeah!

Joss Stone

Went to see Joss Stone last night - fantastic. What an amazing voice. She doesn’t have much stage presence as she is about 3 apples high (she looks a lot like Catrin) and has a really quiet speaking voice. She spoke lots between songs but I have no idea what she said! Once she starts singing though, the stage is all hers. Plus she kept in giggling and at one point burst out laughing in the middle of a song. It was hard not to enjoy the show when she was having such a good time. Dirty Man and Some Kind of Wonderful were excellent. We were not that impressed with some of the new stuff though. Especially Snakes and Ladders, it was kind of Europe meets Falco meets Aretha Franklin. It started out with this big synth intro then carried on with lots of power ballad guitar and Joss’ R&B voice over top of it. Will have to wait to hear it on CD.

New Word Order

Steve just sent me a mail that made me laugh so I thought I would share the best bits with you.

The Washington Post's annual Style Invitational asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

The winner was Ignoranus and I bet we all know a few of them - A person who's both stupid and an asshole at the same time.

Here are some others I liked;

Arachnoleptic fit: The frantic dance performed just after you've accidently walked through a spider web.

Cashtration: The act of buying a house (boat?), which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.

Giraffiti: Vandalism spray painted very, very high.

Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting sex.

Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (this one got extra credit)

Have a Coke and a Smile

What did we ever see in The Cosby Show? It is on in reruns over here and I gotta tell you - it really is crap. It is annoying, condescending and not very funny. Bring back Silver Spoons.

It is I...

Augh, I can't guarantee the quality of this post. I just typed it up and lost it. Computer is not playing ball today.

Saturday was Lex's (aka Uncle Shrek's) birthday party. He had it at the Racing Page. It was a costume party with an 'Allo 'Allo theme. It was a bit surreal to have a costume party in a place that was not dedicated to the party. We were all at the back of the pub dressed up and everyone else wondering what was going on. Especially when 3 girls (Sal, Sam and I) came in dressed as Rene accompanied by Chris, Josh and Simon also dressed as Rene and Brian dressed as Hawkeye (you gotta ask him about that one!). We all decided to go as Rene on order protest about Lex's desire to see all the girls dressed as Yvette. Lex was one of the English airmen and Matt was a Nazi. He didn't stay on costume very long though. He said it was because it pissed off some of the punters and that it was warm. I think it was because he was tired of being called Herr Gruber! However, the award for the best costume has to go to Drew and Dom. They came as a pantomime horse. Underneath the costume, Drew was dressed as Leclerc - he kept taking the head off and whispering 'It is I, Leclerc.' Dom as another Rene. He was a little less amused with the costume though. Drew insisted that they walk down from Dom's place dressed as the horse. They walked all they way down Richmond High Street. Not only did Dom have a sore back from bending over but he had a sore butt from getting slapped by strangers. Oh well, C'est La Vie.

Last night, I watched the movie Blue Crush. I now totally understand Angela's desire to move to Hawaii to learn to surf. I am not sure about the surfing though. Maybe in the little baby waves.

A Fart Would Have Been Nice

Ok, since Angela shared her skunk story - www.islandgirlblog.blogspot.com - I thought I should share my latest embarrassing story. Yesterday, as I was about to sit on the rowing machine at the gym, I heard a rather loud ripping noise. If only it had been a fart but no - it was the butt of my shorts ripping open! Needless to say I sat down pretty darn quick to contemplate what to do. As there were a few people in the gym, I thought ok I am here so I might as well do 10 minutes. Of course I spent the whole time keeping track of the location of all the people around me. At the end of 10 minutes, luckily there was only one guy there. I thought about waiting him out but my parking ticket was about to expire and everyone knows about the evil traffic wardens over here. So I had to crab walk all the way to the changing rooms with my towel over my butt.

Anyone else up for sharing embarrassing stories?

It Is Official

Sally and I are insane. Guess what we did on Saturday afternoon. Yep, you guessed it - we went to Ikea. It is frightening how easily one forgets and repeats traumatic events. Luckily it was a better trip than the last but it has done nothing to diminish my hate/love (yes hate comes first) relationship with the place and man/womankind. Our house is almost now completely furnished with Ikea stuff - you would think this would be a daily reminder of past events but no I manage to completely block it out. Is this a form of PTSD - Post Traumatic Shopping Disorder? (Do you like the use of the acronym?).

On a nicer and funnier note, the comedy club was a really great time. We ended up sitting right up front so some of us got picked on. Luckily, Sal, Dom, Simon and I were spared. Funnily enough the guys tried to me but when they said I was Canadian, all the comedians either said we like Canadians, told complementary Canadian jokes or ignored it because he was Canadian too. The comedians did not do the same for the Aussies. Matt was accused of being special needs, Chris was a long haired, Wella Balsam model wearing a table cloth with no chance of ever having sex and poor little Josh was to be cleaned, oiled and delivered to the MC's room for after the show! Best of all - probably only Madde will understand this but it is so true - Lex was dubbed Uncle Shrek.

GHRD for the AZHDK on your SDLZ

I realise that I have been a bit remiss in updating the site this week. It is amazing the pressure I feel to come up with interesting things to write.

This morning I fought my way through the rain to the office in the City. I was planning on sorting out my new passport photos this afternoon but with the state of me that will probably happen on Monday! Tonight I am going to a comedy club in Battersea (Bah-ter-see-aahh to those in the know) - should be a laugh (ha ha).

Rant 8 - At the moment I am listening to/passively participating in a conference call (read doing other things in order not to be rendered comatose by boredom while 15 people with different accents and varying command of the English language struggle to understand each other). The call started at noon due to the fact that Europe is an hour ahead and just wants to screw up my lunch so I am not a happy bunny. Believe it or not, that is not actually the subject of my rant. The thing I want to rant about is acronyms and how we actually have to learn to speak another language in order to work. I and most of the people I work with can understand the following sentence and spend our days speaking like this;

The EMEA ABSP program allows MASE's and ASE's access to the SPOCK through COL. This access is not available to ASDP or AWDP MASE's or ASE's.

Can I put this on my resume? Will I get credit for it as a foreign language? How does knowing what these mean change my life?

Here is a fun game - make your own guesses at these acronyms - RRR, FiT, CSI, PpSN, ISEE and let me know any stupid ones you use at work.

Random Scribblings

Thanks for all your pestering - it has worked. Sally and I finally made it to the gym today! We got up early today and were in the gym by 9:15am. I used the machines and Sal went for a swim. She did 14 lengths and would have done more except it turns out that Boring Bald Andy is a lifeguard there on Saturday mornings. He came over and stood by her lane staring at her so she decided to stop as she was getting creeped out. We aren't allowed to go on Saturday mornings anymore.

After we got back and recovered, we called Chris and Dave and went to Virginia Water to walk by the lake. It is gorgeous - make me take you there if you visit. It is actually part of Windsor Great Park where Madde and I went to see the polo match.

Sally and I have commissioned Dave to put his photographic ability to work and take some nice black and white pictures for us. He is very good and we are looking forward to some great art on our walls.

Dave has also added a fantastic section to his website - it is called The Curse of Self Awareness. As he explains Self Awareness is our ability to remember that we are not the only people on the planet and that what we do affects the people around us. So far, people have ranted about luggage on the tube at rush hour, people who stop in the middle of the street for no reason, 'help' lines, motorists who swing out in traffic to see why they are not moving and George Bush. The website is http://thebrowns.squarespace.com/ - have at it.

Dinner and a Show

Sally and I had a quintessentially London evening last night. We went to dinner at Maggiore's, a very nice restaurant in Covent Garden and then went to the theatre. We went to see The Rat Pack - basically a reenactment of Sammy Davis Jr, Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra's show at The Sands Hotel in Vegas. It was very good. The guy who did Sinatra was spooky - sounded, acted, sang even smoked like him. The other two were not as good. The Dean Martin guy acted right but talked and sang nothing like he should have. Sammy a little better. You will be pleased to know that in true Christine style, I only dropped food on myself 3 times and we only had to ask for directions to the theatre once. True tourists!