the western bubble

My biggest dilema yeaterday was deciding what to have for lunch. Should I get chips from the chip shop or a sandwich from Starbucks ?

Thats prity pathetic when there are pople in this world who have nothing to eat at all.

Tsunami

Ways to help & sources of info including a realy good blog.
http://www.google.com/tsunami_relief.html

back at work

Here I am back at work after another crappy Christmas.

I spent 3 days at the sales and couldn't find anything that fit/looked ok, and I am really pissed off becouse I need a new coat. Mine has a big hole in it from where my backpack rubs against my bum and it's now unwearable. I have to wear 2 sweatshirts to be warm enought to venture outside.

I did get 2 nice pairs of shoes though. I'll probably never wear them.

Christmas Day

I hate christmas day.

Well, I hat christmas afternoon and evening. The morning is ok. We have a fry up for breakfast open presents and lay the table while mum cooks Lunch.

Then my family turn up and the misery begins. First of all there are a lot of them. Half of them are boysterous kids who I have to keep an eye on and entertain becouse their parents, quite simply, can't be arsed.

The dining tabel isn't beg enough for every one so all the kids eat around the coffiee table in the living room. Don't ask me how or why they did it but one of them managed to wedge a roast potato under the TV stand.

After diner the kids spread out around the house creating noise, kaos and distruction and leaving chocholate wrappers like a trail of breadcrumbs in their wake. The adults sit in the living room with the tely turned up to maximum while they shout at each other.

As with most forign families they get very loud when they are together. They all seem to be cometing with each other to be heard and of course some one always wants to watch the telly so they turn the volume up so they can hear it. So the rest of them talk even louder to be heard over the TV.

Meanwhile I am running round the house like Mary Poppins on speed putting batteries in toys, mopping up spilled drinks, wiping choclate fingerprints from from the walls and furniture and keeping the four year old amused.

By 6 o'clock I'm tired grumpy and can't wait for them to leave so I can go to sleep.

.. not just for christmas

I went to midnight mass with my mum. We don't go to church often but for the last few years we have made a habit of going to midninght mass at our local church on Christmas Eve.

The vicar said something during his sermon that really hit me and has really given me something to think about.

"Jesus is for life, not just for Christmas."

songs that have been stuck in my head today

Fit but you know it (the remix) - The Streets
Follow the yellow brick road- from the Wizard of Oz
I am evil homer - from The Simpsons.

Christmas Gifts

The problem with working in an office over christmas is all the cakes and sweets and biscuits people keep bringing in as gifts.

Our suppliers have so far sent our department a big luxury box of chocolate covered biscuits form Marks & Spencer, a big tin of Quality streets, a box of Indian sweets, 2 bags of Hershey's kisses, a bag of peppermint patties, a box of fairy cakes, a chocolate Yule log and a box of muffins.

It wouldn't be so bad if they were left in the downstairs kitchen, I only venture down there once a day. But they are in the upstairs kitchen (so they don't get nicked by people from other departments). The counter they are on is in my direct line of sight and I have to walk past it every time I leave the room. It's just not fair that this kind of temptation is in my way.

Being gluten free has helped me avoid a lot of it though. No cakes, biscuits, Yule log or muffins for me. But I have had a fair few chocolates . . . Still, you have to reason that partial abstinence is better than none at all!!!

more hot chocolate drinking exploits

Oh, what an exciting life I lead.

The highlight of my day yesterday, was trying the new flavor of hot choclate at Starbucks 'Choclate Mint Bliss'. It was, in a word, Hevanly.
What made it so other worldly I hear you ask ? Aside form its subtle mint flavour; it was served at a temperature that did not scald the top layer off my tounge with the first sip.

Told you my life was boring.

day nurse

Day Nurse is the best. I guess evil Galaxo are good for something
after all.

Iraq to pay for nestle's loss of profits

Nestle, KFC, Phillip Morris and other usual suspects are claiming compensation off Iraq for loss of *profits* during the gulf conflicts. Its literally billions of dollars and Iraq has had to take out a massive loan from the IMF to pay up:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1328888,00.html

The article also points to an organisation set up to campaign against this ridiculous situation:

http://www.jubileeiraq.org/

It was a mistake try and start a diet in december

. . .because lets face it, it was never going to work.

I mostly stuck to it the first week. I went to the gym 4 times and I did a yoga class. But then on Friday we had our department Christmas dinner and everything went out the window.

I haven't pigged out this last week but I haven't dieted. I have had quite a few biscuits form the deluxe box that one of our suppliers sent us and I had a blueberry muffin form the box of muffins another supplier sent.

So here’s what I'm going to do from now until new year will be the pre-diet, cutting out the bread and biscuits and getting over he worst of the cravings, and upping the exercise so that by the time the actually hard work begins I'll be used to it and it wont be such a shock to the system.

I also will not be telling anybody I know what i am doing. I have found that if you even tell one person you are on a diet you are doomed to failure. They will constantly be asking you about it and making it into a big issue and bringing it up all the time so that you are constantly thinking about it which is bad. The only way to get through it is to change your lifestyle and keep it to your self. The only time i have ever had success with a diet has been when I have done this and every time I have failed is when I have told some one. So this time I'm keeping my mouth shut.

busted

We were supposed to go to the Busted concert yesterday. Instead we spent 3 hours in the Accident and Emergency department of the local hospital.

As she was turning onto my road my friends car got side swiped, horrifically. The police and the paramedics both told her it was a miracle she wasn't seriously injured. The car is a write off and so is the lamppost it was slammed into and wrapped around.

An ambulance was with her in 2 minutes, it wasn't the one that was called it just happened to be passing - thank goodness, and they were fantastic. Big up the London Ambulance Service - even if they didn't turn on the lights and siren like we asked!!

Thankfully she escaped with only minor injuries, a sprained ankle, brushing on her shin and back and a painful shoulder from her seat belt snapping. I think I did a good job of keeping her distracted during the wait, which passed surprisingly quickly. There was a TV in the waiting area. Guess what it was showing. Yep, Casualty!!!

We saw the Triage Nurse within 15 minutes of arriving who gave her some painkillers which numbed the pain. We then settled in for the long wait to see a doctor. Considering it was a Saturday night it wasn't too bad, but we left before chucking out time so I guess the violent drunks had yet to arrive.

We chatted about TV shows, movies, Christmas shopping, books we were reading- well books I've been reading, she has been doing her masters dissertation for the past six months and has read nothing but obscure conservation textbooks. Thankfully she handed in her disertation on Friday. Imagine if she hadn’t finished it yet, a horrible accident on top of all that stress. It doesn't bear thinking about.

Anyway, when we saw the doctor he gave her a brief examination and asked a few questions before saying she'd be fine just needed to take some time off work to rest and take some over the counter pain killers if needed. It was a bit of a disappointing diagnosis after all that waiting!

secret santa -the final posting

We've just done our Secret Santa.

I got a pair of socks.

They are nice socks. They are stripy Toates Tosties Toe-socks with non slip thingys on the bottom.

Theres not much more I can say about it.

Damn, that sounds really ungreatful! They are nice and I do like them, but they are the sort of generic prezzie you get from someone who doesn't know you well.

I'm sure they'll come in handy when the weather turns.

Well, I'm off to the Christmas party now. It's an all dayer, we plan to be bladderd by 3 - after we've won the quiz of course. . .

the twelve days of Christmas

A Nativity Play Review

Have you ever tried to keep a four year old from disturbing his older brothers School Nativity play ?

I have and it's not easy. It is easier though than trying to keep a 3 year old from spoiling his sisters school nativity play as the woman in the row in front of me found out to her peril.

"LOOK ITS A PIRATE!" points and shouts at man in strange hat looking for a seat
"WHERE'S CAMILLA?" shouted after the first act.
"THAT'S NOT CAMILLA !" shouted at the beginning of the third act
"I WANT TO DANCE, LETS GO UP AND DANCE"
"I WANT TO GO UP AND DANCE"
"LET GO OF ME, I WANT TO DANCE"
"CAMILLA ! ! !"
"Where's She Goiiiiiiinn' ?"
And so on and so forth, until he began crying really loudly and his teenage sister hissed "Just take him out for gods sake !!!"
Which his mother reluctantly did.

I on the other hand only had to deal with one excitedly shouted outburst "YOU HAVE TO LAUGH NOW!!!" when every one laughed at the first joke. After that it was all whispers "You have to clap now"
"Can we go now?"
" Ok, after he's been on we're going, right?"
There was some rolling around on the floor under the seat and a futile escape attempt curbed by his mother but over all I have to say he behaved quite well.

As for his brothers performance as one of the 12 drummers drumming, it was great, all 6 minutes of it !

secret santa 2

I found the perfect prezzie for my secret santa. Not only did it come in at £4.98 - just 2p short of the £5 limit, but it's sooooo good I want to keep it for my self.

spyhunter

I spent most of Sunday deleting spyware from my PC. It's disturbing to think how much was on there tracing our every move on the web, very creepy in fact. Most disturbing of all was the wild tangent program, which sat bold as brass in the programs menu masquerading as games software. I naturally assumed someone in my house had downloaded it to assist with the playing of some online game. But lo and behold it was spyware, and one of the nastier ones at that.

I only discovered all this because some how spyware from the bullseye network had installed itself on my PC and this meant that every time a page was opened in IE bullseye would open a new IE window to its home page or an advert. This got very annoying very quickly and slowed things down immensely.

It was while trawling the net to discover what bullseye was and how I could get rid of it that I discovered the Spyhunter shareware program. God bless the creators for this handy little tool which searches your hard drive and roots out all spyware (and highlights dangerous cookies - no not the damp moldy one at the bottom of the biscuit tin.) Did you know that the double-click cookie actually gathers personally identifiable info and passes it back to its server or that the bulls eye network program can (and will) initiate a connection to the internet to download updated to it’s program from it’s home server.

Luckily for me all the spyware I discovered on my PC was easy enough to delete as bullseye and wild tangent actually have uninstallers built in (probably to avoid being sued). And I found some great info on some tech message boards telling me how to eradicate them completely by purging their remnants from the registries.

Now all I have to do is train my entire household to delete their cookies at the end of every session and remember to run Spyhunter once a week.

Spyware if fucking evil and more people need to be made aware of it. I think all anti-virus software should come bundled with some kind of anti spyware software.

Kiwi serial killer

or how a drunk Kiwi Wanker ruined our Friday night.

Here is what happend.

Anne and i were enjoying a drink in the Walkabout in Shepherds Bush.
We like it in there because: A - the drinks are cheap, B - they have live music followed by a cheesy disco & C - Aussie/Kiwi pubs are always fun because everyone inside is out to get bladderd and have fun.

So there we were enjoying our drinks and the music having finally found a spot to stand in where we weren't getting bumped too much, and weighing up the merits of each cheesy track for our Kareoke solos at next weeks work Christmas party. 2 blokes came and stood next to us. It was pretty much the only spot left to stand in as the pub was packed. We didn't think anything of it.

The next thing I know one of them comes up to me and says "Why are you too so bloody miserable?" Huh? we were having a good time and were both smiling. "Do you two not like boys then, are you into girls ?" What the fuck !
After which he stormed off. Thankfully.

His mate lent over and asked what he'd said and I told him and he made a face that said 'What the Fuck!'
We went back to chatting and after a while the mate started to try and talk to me. I didn't really want to talk to him but I thought, 'There's no point being rude he might be interesting and there's no reason why we can't just have a general chat'. So we had a brief shouted conversation where in I discovered his name was Colin and he was from Auckland and he LOVES London, I mean he really LOVES London, "it's the centre of the world aye! When you read the papers it's all about London and never about New Zealand, this is where its all happening" and so on and so forth.

Midway through the London appreciation lecture, his mate came back with 2 more snake bites and proceeded to talk To Anne, after a while she turned to me and said "Lets go now". "OK" I said after clocking the look on her face. I said good-bye and we headed to the tube station while Anne filled me in.

The friend had been telling her all sorts of awful disgusting things she couldn't bring her self to repeat before declaring " You're so beautiful I want to kiss you."
Anne said "whoa, sorry I have a boyfriend." Which is true.
He went psycho.
"Are you two lesbians?" How pathetic, just 'cos she doesn't want to get off with you she must be a lesbian!
"Is it and inter-racial thing" WTF !!!! what!! now we're inter racial lesbians !!!!
Then he said to her "If you two don't leave right now I'm gonna start picking on your friend." As threats go I've heard worse, but combine it with the creepiness of the conversation and the fact that he was a complete freak and anyone would have high-tailed it out of there.

Some men are complete fucking wankers and this one was probably a serial Killer in the making.

secret santa

Lyndsey is organising our office Secret Santa. She's goeing a bit over board with the excitement of it all.

After several cajoling emails 28 people have agreed to participate and the names are being picked our of the hat this afternoon. This may not sound particularly over the top to you , but this is simply becouse I haven't told you that Lyndsey has bought a sparkly glitter outfit the wear whilst giving out the names. She's also planning a trip to the supermarket for a big bag of sweets to give out as people pick their names " so the people who aren't doing it will get jealous".

I hope she gets mint humbugs so I can say "Bah!" when she gives me one.

Tales from the Gym

This morning I went to the gym before work. I nearly fell off the treadmill.

The guy at reception didn't seem too bothered when I told him about the dodgy belt that kept slipping. Even if he bothers to report it to the management they probably won't do anything about it. They'll probably just think that the fat bint is making excuses for only doing a pitifully short session on it. (Shows what they know, I can now run twice as far as when I first started exercising. I'm slowly making progress !)

Someone else will probably fall off that treadmill and crack their head open on the stepper. They'll probably sue the gym for negligence and when I hear about it I'll laugh an evil laugh and then give a sworn statement to the guy from Injury lawyers for you saying that I reported the dodgy treadmill and the management did nothing about it. And then they'll go bankrupt and I'll laugh evilly again. That'll teach those smug gym bastards a lesson.

booker t special

Last night I got beaten up by a four year old.

I got choke-slammed 'Big Show' style, Jumped on a la 'Booker T Special' and kneed in the stomach thanks to John Seena. My tag team partner Tinky Winky was absolutely no use and lay on the floor grinning while I was pummelled and my opponents tag team partner Action Man jeered from the other side of the bed - I mean ring.

Three quarters of the way through my pummelling my opponents 9 year old brother entered the fracas and instead of coming to my aid, proceeded to pin me down while his brother attempted an ankle lock followed by an elbow slam into my spine. Tinky Winky didn't even bother try and tag me out. I think he was intimidated by action mans six pack.

WWE has a lot to answer for.

something for the weekend

Saturday I did a basic first aid course with the red cross - I am now a fully qualified First aider and I have a certificate to proove it.

Unfortunately, I some how managed to set my alarm clock forward one hour and got up at 5.30 instead of 6.30 and was in Hammersmith for 8 am instead of 9. I honestly wondered why it was so dark outside and didn't twig until I looked at my watch to see when the bus was due. I spent a fun hour seeing how long I could make a cup of tea last (45 mins!) so I could stay nice and warm inside a Coffee shop in the bus station.

The course was a bit shite, but I did get to practice the kiss of life on a resusci-annie doll and learnt how to tie a bandage and 2 different types of arm sling.

Yesterday, I went shopping for xmas prezzies and ended up buying myself a karaoke machine instead. I've always wanted a karaoke machine and boy is it going to get a workout over Christmas.

If you spot karaoke tapes on sale anywhere let me know !!!

prepping envelopes is fucking tedious

I have to stick the sticker with our logo on the front of the envelopes then stamp our return address on the back. Then I have to stamp my name at the top of the prepaid return envelopes before folding them in half and stuffing them into the envelope with the logo on it.

There must be an easier way. . .

today is world AIDS day