Thirsty Thursday's
Mood:  chillin'
Now Playing: Neurosis - The Eye of Every Storm
As this year winds it's way down, here are some random thoughts as elisabeth and I sip the last of the Christmas wine.

1) Yay! The comments are sputtering back into semi-consciousness. ... We'll engage with them starting from... Now!

2) In light of the horrible, tsunami's and Bush's laxidazical (yah, yah, I know I spelt tht rong); here's a great little piece on writing on Why GWB isn't a good Christian, so check it out. ... This is also a good link to see just how paltry Bush's ofer of 35 million $ for releif is. ... And This, I suppose show's the mindset of all those idiots who voted for Bush. ... And, finally, Here is a great editorial that puts Bush in a historical context by my favorite left-wing editorial writing guy.

3) I've >sigh< only got a day left of work and no immediate prospects but, hopefully, that will be short lived.

4)Elisabeth has found some exciting things shes going to do with her bonus but I'll let her write about them.

5) We'll be having a quiet New Year's over here - the meal plan fell apart when we realized that we could save the money we would have spent at the restaurant and eat really good food over here with it. We've also accumulated quite a few bottle of champaign and E's become very adapt at popping the cork.

6) Oooh, I bought a kick ass dictionary on discount for only 10 pounds. I. AM. A. NERD.

7) I'm also a loser who drags out his blog entries just so that he can write

8) I forget what eight was for

9) in the hopes that someone's familliar enough with the Violent Femmes so that they can get my lame joke.

Wacky Wednesdays
Mood:  cheeky
Now Playing: White Stripes-Elephant
On a lighter note than my last entry, it's end of the holidays, and back to work today, which isn't so bad when no one else is working and things are pretty quiet.

In a bid to genereate more interaction, please reply to this question before 1st January:

What are you doing for New Years?

--We may go to a restaurant, maybe not...no real plans. Please excite us with your plans!

L8R
E

Sunny Monday
Mood:  happy
Now Playing: Stereolab: Dots and Loops
Contrary to popular belief, Christmas is complicated. There are so many conflicts to wade through, such as age, finances, family situation, and work responsibilites. (to name a few).

For instance, AGE: if you are overweight and in your late 40s, and should be closely monitoring your diet, how much do you give in on Christmas day when the plate of turkey and stuffing is passed around? Indulging on Christmas is part of the fun, even if it seriously complicates your health?

FAMILY SITUATION: A child-free Christmas vs. a child-oriented Christmas. How much do you focus the day around the children, how spoiled should they feel? As a working parent, do you feel your time off should be spent relaxing for yourself, or working even harder for your children.

At the end of the holidays, it sees we're all left with a sense of "what is it all for anyway?" I mean talk to Stephen about the Zombie Christmas-Eve shoppers who have checked their brain into another dimension, and beg to be told what to buy, as they have no clue what to do for presents.

FINANCIALY: People go into more debt than any other time of the year around Christmas. Why? Because it's the season of giving? No, because Christmas is complicated, and no one feels in control of themselves, their families, or their chequebook.

In short, Christmas is out of hand. And as many Christians would probably interject at some point in my rant so far, that Christmas is actually a very simple occasion: it's about the birth of Christ, the saviour of the world.

In turn this presents another conflict: how to balance between secular and religious Christmas. Many simply visit church (often the only time all year--what a priveledge for the Churches) on Christmas Eve, and then spend Christmas day indulging in secular traditions. Quite acceptable by most standards.

Now, at this point in my young life, I am confused. I am not a church-goer, and I tend not to follow "secular" ways either. So Christmas doesn't hold much weight with me either relgiously or secularly.

Ideally I would like to try to give nice presents on people's birthdays, when the occasion is actually for them. And as for celebrating Christ's birth as a non-church goer, I appreciate the need for having sprituatlity. So every reminder to increase love, compassion and joy in the world is most welcome. Except that I think focusing heavily on this only once a year, is hypocritical. It should rather be a reinforcement of attitudes nurtured all year long. Therefore, marking one day of the year to go to church, to remind us to be giving and caring people is not good enough. But again, going to church every Sunday hasn't worked for me in the past, even though it certainly works for hundreds of thousands.

But I believe that going to Christian church can not be the only way to cultivate positive attitudes. In fact, looking at current world events, understanding diversity, especially religious diversity, is desperately needed throughout the world. That is what strikes me as the best Christmas message, secular or non.

T'was the night after Christmas
Mood:  chillin'
Now Playing: B-52's - 52 Girls
More weirdness, if you ask me - and it has nothing to do with Elisabeth saying how she's got to do a blog entry and then doesn't! nope; we got a slight frost last night and they're saying that Britain got a White Christmas. ... And betting agencies are paying out! Millions of pounds! Or at least ten-thousands of pounds! Pardon me, but when does a frozen puddle become a White Christmas?

Petty bitching aside, we had a wonderful Christmas with Elisabeth's co-worker - we played with their boys, put on our patented puppet show "Hungry Hungry Hippo" featuring Eugine Tiger and Gilbert Hippo, ate plenty of food and didn't drink too much. On top of it all, we watched 'Chocolat' and I really enjoyed it (As opposed to the James Bond-fest that usually occurs on Dec. 25th ... not that I don't miss seeing You Only Live Twice for the 400th time...).

Hope y'all had some fun hoidays and feel free o expound on them ... Seems like JC's taken off to Buffalo and left the messge board rather dreary.

Merry Christmas!
Mood:  celebratory
Now Playing: The chruch service at St. Mary's
Here's hoping your Christmas is a merry one!

Christmas is a-comin'
Mood:  chillin'
Now Playing: and you will know us by the trail of dead - source tags & codes
>phew<
Christmas is almost here and the exhaustion is setting in. We're still not used to the blanket of darkness that falls on this country from 3 pm to 9 am. I'm getting a sense of what it's like to live in the Arctic.

Pay day came early and by the looks of it, we'll be UK debt free by tomorrow so whoppee! I've just got to get a new freakin' job in a few weeks so that the good times can keep rollin'.

Otherwise, blank. Work, eat, have a tipple, sleep. We've been getting up to date a little bit with movies and finally got around to seeing The Producers. Now I want to see all the movies that Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor did together (I know this is a bit of a tangent BUT) but I can't remember all the movies they did. There's Stir Crazy, See No Evil Hear No Evil and what other ones? There's at least another one or two but my mind's a blank. Anyone?

Quorn bangers & mash for din-din's and I can tell that Elisabeth's going to ruin her meal by using honey mustard instead of the proper British kind.

PS- HAPPY BELATED ANNIVERSARY MARK & JENN!!!

PPS- To my dad: You may think that Elisabeth was wise to stop us from opening your first delivery but with the arrival of the 2nd delivery labelled 'WaitroseWinedirect," she's ordered an immediate opening and inspection of the goods. Go figure.

PPPS- Another exciting arrival from Sweden: Bilar candies and Marabou chocolates. What's that going out the window? Oh yeah, it's my health.

...at least I'm not working 'till 1.30 tomorrow. Ugh, 'till 9pm, though.

Pictures of the day
We went for a walk along the canal today:

Came home and saw a fox lurking around the parking lot:

Now we're just sittin' round, waitin' for the lasagne to cook and feelin' apologetic for not makin' this blog entry a little bit more entertainin'.

Christmas time in woking
As we approach the Big C, life in Woking goes on; shoppers shop, our yob neighbour has bought himself a brand new pair of camouflage pants while his little child teeters around in rags like the village drunk. It's rainy & sunny (usually at the same time) and the cats are fighting in the bushes outside of our window. The pantomime has come to Woking; it's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and, as Woking sets the standard for artistic interpretation, the dwarfs are being played by real dwarfs. So in addition to the usual freaks and geeks roaming the town square, there are packs of dwarfs, usually in 2's or 3's, doing their Christmas shopping as well. If London is supposed to be a microcosom of the world; Woking is a microcosom of the world that time forgot.

Bonus Personnal Ad Follies (From the Woking News & Mail): Gay cigar smoking bloke, 30's, from Alton, seeks non-smoking, shy, cute white lad, around 18 for fun, possibly more.

Let's hope his Christmas is a merry one!

Pooped
Mood:  hungry
Now Playing: Bad Religion - Stranger than Fiction
Well here's my attempt to get the blog moving a bit more; instead of one blog a week as we've been doing the past few weeks. Except Elisabeth's late coming back from work and picking up the take out pizza. As a result, this glass of wine's gone to my head and I keep accidentally closing windows.
Yikes!

Christmas here is insane. EVERYONE waits 'till the last minute to shop. So have I and I sense that I'm very, very, very close to getting screwed with regard to Elisabeth's present that I haven't bought yet. ... Of course, I wouldn't be had she not come into the book store last week and force me to buy the things that I was going to give her as a present because I knew she wanted them even though she thought I'd probably forgotten.
Bleah!

BBC radio 4 did a special thing about all the insane things booksellers get asked over the holidays and it only pissed me off because it only scratched the INSANE surface and didn't touch on the fact that YOU'RE ASKED THE-SAME-BUT-DIFFERENT QUESTIONS OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AD INFINITUM for 8 freakin' hours a day.
RAWG!

These are the 3 simple rules a person needs in order to not be and insane customer and people don't seem to be able to follow them:
1) Know the title of the book you're looking for.
2) Know the author's name
3) If you're told the book is out of print, accept it as a fact; not something you can negotiate.
Bonus tip: Knowing the colour of the cover doesn't do anything except confuse EVERYTHING. YOU CANNOT DO AN INTERNET SEARCH ON A BOOK ON THE BASIS OF THE COLOUR OF ITS COVER.

Who are those sexy people?
Mood:  hungry

Why us at the office party, of course!

The Christmas shopping insanity has kicked into 5th gear and, luckily, I got off 1/2 an hour early. ... Of course that's because I couldn't take any breaks today. Elisabeth's still at work and it's a quarter to seven. Yikes! Thank god for BRRREETO dinners!

I got shouted at today by a customer (whose name, though it's spelled differently, is pronounced 'heiny'. Haha) because the Frank Sinatra song book she'd ordered hadn't come in. Customer queries are becoming increasingly obscure and, strangely, they're increasigly assuming I know what the fuck they're talking about when they ask for the book that explains the origin of the word 'shag' and how it's come from refering to a rug in the 1970's to slang for sex in the new millenium. Ah yes, that one's on my reading list right next to Fuck Off and Get a Life.
(Ahem, rant over.)

Book I'm seriously reccomending: Philip Pullan's His Dark Materials trilogy. The first book's Northern Lights. It's for tenagers but, whereas J.K. Rowling has to warn people two years ahead of time that she's going to painlessly kill off a supporting character, this series is about the Christian Chruch kidnapping and torturing children. It's a massive runaway hit over here with adults & children alike; there's been a stage adapation of it (That takes place over two days) and a movie adaptation coming up. I gained interest in it because the BBC had a story about how the U.S. is pressuring for all references to 'The Church' being removed from the movie. ... Which is kind of like removing all mention of wizardry from Harry Potter. Anyway, I don't often reccomend books here and I reccomend it. Elisabeth's waiting for me to finish the damn series so she can have her husband back.