Thursday night stuff
Mood:  lazy
Now Playing: Radiohead - Hail to the Thief
Topic: Stephen Says
The computer at work blew up the other day. Literally. It went BANG and then smoke came out of it. So now we've got no (decent) computer at work and it sucks. You don't know how much you'll miss technology until you can't access the internet, a good printer, that report you wrote that was due for today that you had to re-write at the last minute, or the the outreach flyer you were so close to finishing has all suddenly disappeared.

I haven't been working so hard but am still awfully tired. That whole February funk has set in already and I'm ready for some sun and vitamin D that won't surface in the UK until well into May.

Bring on Barcelona.

E has gotten us tickets to see Cat Power at the beginning of March. This is exciting because 1)We're finally going to see live music at long last and 2) We're finally going to see live music at long last. Her Christmas gift to us in the form of a subscription to time out has finally paid off and we'll be able to see good live music and know what the heck is going on in London.

Like a Nick Cave concert whose tickets are going for 40 (!!!) pounds a pop. Since when was I into a musician whose tickets go for over 100$Cdn?
Oh yeah, Tom Waits.
Anyway...

All is quiet. E has made me turn off the music so that she could play the piano & sing Les Miserables.

I'd like to reccomend Next Generation Wines (nXg). It's an Australian wine and we've had 2 of their reds over the last week and they're both very nice.

Bonus Blogging!
Mood:  irritated
Now Playing: The Dehumidifier - Still ain't got a name
Topic: Stephen Says
Alright so today was a massive walk-a-thon:

To the town center & back (20mins) where I got groceries and bought The Corporation by Joel Bakan based on his movie that I mentioned below. E will give periodic reviews (Won't you, Elisabeth?) as she goes through it. A taster: The introduction alone almost made her cry. Hey, does anyone out there think we should start up a book club???
(I'm being serious)

To work (& Back): 40 mins.

From work I'm sent up to town to go to the bank to withdraw cash & then Sainsburys for milk & 4 cans of furniture polish. I'm reminded by my manager that I am nothing but his errand boy. (20mins)
(PS - this is all walking time & not counting shopping time)

From work I go and do outreach - walk to the dude's flat & then to the pub for a drink (30mins)
(We went to the pub & not the football match, FYI.)

Sooooooo, today I spent a total of an hour and fifty minutes walking around Woking.
I'll let you, dear reader, interpret all of that.

Oh, and how freakin' cool is this: Alan Moore interviewed Michael Moorcock this week as a live theatre piece that was open to the public.
But of course, I didn't see it.
But still, very, very cool.
I would vote for it.

And in conclusion, E wouldn't blog today because she didn't want to bump my entry down a notch. What do y'all think of restrictive blogging like that? C'mon, put her in her place!

Oh, and what about that book club?
I'm serious, you know.

General Update
Mood:  spacey
Now Playing: Steel Pole Bath Tub - Scars from Falling Down
Topic: Stephen Says
Ok, so the title of this entry says gereral update. So here it is because I've been thinking that I should blog but I haven't done because I'm lazy and prefer doing nothing at all on my days off.

The past week was my 'busy' week at work. I'd forgoteen how it works what with Christmas, New Years, etc. throwing the rota off and on top of it being my busy week, I took a bunch of overtime as well and was pretty exhausted by the time that yesterday came 'round. Otherwise, not much to say, really.

I meant to post this observation a week ago: On Monday last, I was walking; it was a cold & damp British morning, about 2 degrees and there was frost on the ground. And as I passed by this muddy little patch of earth, I saw that someone had actually laid grass seed. In the 1st week of January. Now, I thought that was pretty dumb but, as it turns out, later in the day it got mild & the gound un-froze. So maybe it makes sense, I don't know. My little obsession right now is to see if anything grows. To see if planting grass seed in the 1st week of January is ever a good idea.

We watched the movie The Corporation the other day, don't know if any of y'all have seen it. I think it's been out for a while but it takes leftie Canadian documentries a while to get across the Atlantic. We'll be buying the book soon as well. Anyway, E has convinced me that we need to be less corporate so we're looking into signing up for a plan where we'll get organic fruit & vegetables delivered to our flat every week. I'm a tad sceptical but who knows. It's cheap and looks professional.

We also saw Brokeback Mountain last night; I think I liked it more that Elisabeth but she was crying throughout the last part. This was a little awkward because she was the only one in the theatre doing this. Now, I'm not going to suggest that it's like this for Britain in general - I'm certain that Woking, beautiful Woking; Woking, bastion of culture is to blame for the rest of the audience's overall confusion and befuddlement at what they wee watching. And oh my God, how unfomfortable were they during the sex scenes? The girls next o E were actually sayig things like "No, don't do it!" I really had to wonder if the majority of the people there knew what they were about to see when they bought tickets for it.

A funny thing: A bunch of old ladies who had seen the early show complained that the volume was turned off in the theatre. I suspect they were just confused by the fact that the main cowboy just mumbled alot.

Another funny thing: It's not about gay cowboys at all but gay shepards. Although I understand why they didn't go with that line of advertising.

E had a good time up in Stratford upon Avon over the weekend but I suspect that she'll be blogging this evening. I'm working late and, with luck, will be going to see Woking FC play tonight. Go Cards!

Freaky Friday
Mood:  happy
Now Playing: DJ Shadow
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries
So the end of another working week. Did anybody notice it's Friday the 13th, not because of the date but because of unlucky experiences? Lets see, today's a bit unlucky because I had to say goodbye to Stephen until Sunday afternoon. He's sleeping over at work tonight, and tomorrow I'm in Stratford with co-workers for a football tournament of teams made from various linked companies. I'll be collected at 8:20 am on a Sat. morning! But the upshot is I get to see Stratford (maybe go to the village instead of watch all of the matches) and have a free bar from 4pm-6 as well as dinner & accommodations, on da house!

So I won't see Stephan until Sun....but he made a kickass risotto last night which I'll scarf down in his memory.

Also, I've noticed we've been slacking on the picture front, so here's one we meant to put up on New Years. This is about as CRAZY! as it got chez Allin-in-Woking on New Years Eve:

Yes. Those are Mr. Men cupcakes.

In other news there's been a lot of craziness at Stephen's work, which I'll let him rant about. And we've booked our trip to Barcelona from the 9-12 of February, and have rented an apartment for 3 nights in the Gothic quarter. It's even got a jacuzzi!

Ok, so I'm freak-a-deaking here--I can't wait!!

But I promise to take pictures this weekend, so hopefully there'll be a decent post in a couple of days.

And remember, Fri. the 13th isn't over yet...and what's more, it's my 1/2 birthday...6 months to 25!

marathon
Mood:  spacey
Now Playing: Skinny Puppy - Bites & Remission
Topic: Stephen Says
It's funny that I hadn't realized how busy I've been until Elisabeth pointed out to me last night that I left for work before her on Monday and only just got home from work after her on Tuesday. That she had worked two full days to my one, long, extendoshift.

Work is busy right now which is good.

I only got three hours of sleep on my sleep-in which kinda sucked because it left me feeling grotty (And, as a result, hyper-cafeinated) for all of yesterday. I normally sleep really well during sleep-ins but these birds in the back garden sang all night long. The silence also got to me - everyone wet to bed around midnight and the house was very quiet (There's usually banging around all night long). I blame the beloved dehumidifier, actually - I'm used to its gentle backgrond hum and and reassuring tinkle when a squirt of water falls into its basin.

We still haven't given it a name.

As a result of being unable to sleep, I watched late night TV. It's the 1st time that I've been annoyed by England only having five channels. After two thirty (And 2 1/2 hours of Celebrity Big Brother [Go George Galloway, you meglomaniac!][Boo Dennis Rodman! - you're only there as the token American who is going to draw attention t how stupid you are and, conversely, how stupid all Americans are so that the British can feel superior.]) there's nothing really on other than moto-cross (Yawn), down hill skiing competitions (Started off good showing a bunch of terrible falls and injuries but became dull, repetitive and made me feel very ADD), a smarmy UK Jerry Springer knock off (Totally lacking in empathy and actually encouraging his participants to fight and then, when they do, the skinny tie, hawston fin wearing jack ass would just stand back and smirk.), lessons in speaking German and a documentry in exploring the origins of geological formations that make famous vacation resorts into famous vacation resorts (Teribly boring, acually. I suppose that if it had actually been an interesting documentry, then it wouldn't be showing at 3 o'clock in the freaking morning.).

Iterestingly, starting at around 2AM, the BBC 1 & 2 has little men & women pop up in the bottom courner of the TV screen and do sign interpretations of all the shows. Is there a massive surge of deaf BBC 1 & 2 viewers at 2 o'clock in the morning that makes this a necessity or is this just some BBC tokenism?

Hmm...

I'm taking it very easy today. There's a Visa bill I've got to pay and a mystery package from B&Q that's waiting to be picked up at the post office. Things don't get more exciting than this.

Catch-Up,
Mood:  silly
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries
It's been all quiet on the blogging front, and probably because we've just been having too much fun.

Friday, now lets see, we spent the evening eating and drinking wine, and watched Lost in Translation. Beautiful, touching, and a slice of wealthy life.

Saturday I kept my promise to myself and ventured into London to check out the Borough Market & the foodie shops. Stephen decided stay home & chill out in the apt.

I'll defintely have to do the Borough Market & Southwark again with Stephen. It cracked London's armour for me. In a short radius there's the oldest market in London, and it supplies wholesalers and restaurants with produce during the week & promotes artisanal trade on Saturdays. Lots of fresh meat, bread, cheese and wine. Not to mention fresh produce, spices, jams, and HUGE bricks of BROWNIES!!! Fringing the covered market are all sorts of indepedent gormet foodie shops, cafes and restaurants. Not far away, down a narrow cobble-stoned alley is the Clink museum, which presents life in the clink, the original one. You could look through small jail-barred windows at street level into the basement musuem. Lots of dingy, dark cells, axes & blacksmiths?

I meandered past Southwark catherdral & a really cool historic boat, and walked down the Thames eating an organic bean burger, until I found myself at the Tate Modern, about 5 min. later...so close!

The Tate has an amazing installation in the Turbine Hall by Rachel Whiteread. Go to http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/whiteread/default.shtm to see pictures. This was real interactive art, because you had to walk through this "maze" in order to see & experience it. It was unexpectedly revealing.

Right, after looking at the nudes collection & Picasso's Weeping Woman, I headed back home.

Stephen & I were happily reunited & ate & drank more and watched Nil by Mouth, written & directed by Gary Oldman. Extremely well acted. It reminded me a lot of Cronenberg's History of Violence. Ooh that Viggo ;P

SUNDAY: Lazy morning. We ate lunch at the pub & read the paper. AH! Relaxing.

Now it's Monday & we're back at work. Stephen's doing a sleep-in, so I'm all on my lonesome.

Hope all your resolutions are on track, and for those who didn't make them, well, just be smuggly happy with yourselves.

A link
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: BBC 4 news
Topic: Stephen Says
Because sometimes over in Stephen & Elisabeth in England-land we like to be a little bit political, I thought I'd post a link.

Over in This Modern World, Tom Tomorrow has posted some pretty interesting pictures of newspapers over in West Virginia announcing the survival of the 12 miners and contrasted them with the later amended headlines. There's an interesting pseudo-analysis about what it means now that the 'miracle in the mine' didn't happen and how Americans will only tie their religion to good things that happen.

It's early, I've got to go to London, I haven't had any coffee and I bet I could have just typed that alot more succinctly. Anyway, Here's the link.

E's Year in Review
Mood:  hungry
Now Playing: BBC4
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries
Well Stephen's selfish ways has inspired my own recap of the first lines of each of MY first posts of the month:

January:
Yesterday Stephen posted some pictures of us, but I got "pissy" and told him to take them off. Sorry.

February:
"She-bop", better known as Stephen's Laptop, has fallen ill and will be out of commission indefinetly.

March:
You can now rest assured that Stephen has not done me in...I am alive and living in this noisy hell called England.

April:
I'm scrapping brownie from a knife with my teeth, and then washing it down with white wine.

May: Guess who's back?

June; Good Morning Blog! I sit here listen to Ray Charles on a Sunday morning, watching the washing machine spin in front of me.

July: We did it! We did it!! We've booked our tickets to Canada!!! FINALLY!!! Look out for us on September 16th in Montreal...and we will depart from Toronto on 29th September. 2 weeks to drink Sleeman, eat poutine, and eat scrumptious Canadian breakfasts....oh bliss...

August:
Wail...wah...Stephen's doing a sleep-in tonight.

September:
Yup---Tim & Vicki(e)? and I saw Knightsbridge & Chelsea, Westminister, Camden Town, Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square, Soho, Regent & Oxford Streets, Savile Row, Piccadilly Circus & then capped the evening with a stroll along the South Bank of the Thames to Waterloo Bridge to see Parliament. I think it's safe to say they'll be back to London soon.

October:
So I've taken seriously the advice of my big brother Mark & have not just sat on my arse waiting for some stupid job to come along.

November:
Didn't end up doing any theatre stuff...hopefully tonight. Did go for a run this morning, did go to work (so did Stephen), and we've had leftovers for dinner, Stephen was kind enough to bring a fresh baguette home...so we're now happily full.

December:
See what did I tell ya? Going back to work would effectively kill off the regular blogging!

What excitments will 2006 have in store?

Alright, fine,
Mood:  silly
Topic: Stephen Says
I really should be going to bed but there's this silly bloggy meme thing going around where you're supposed to put the 1st sentence of the 1st entry of each month of 2005 that you posted on your blog, get all 12 sentences together and that's the summary of the year.
So I just did that.
(Loser, I know.)
But I only did it for entries that I wrote.
(Selfish loser to boot!)
And, um, it's pretty lame, actually.
Anyway, without further ado, here's my year in review. Make of it what you will:

What better music to listen to when you're about to go on the dole?
Okay, first things first: I've been meaning to post this link that Sean sent me.
Ok; first things first.
Or else I'm not sleeping enough.
Light blogging over the next few days (Erm, isn't it ALWAYS light blogging???) as I'm working & Elisabeth's still fighting jet lag & illness (Not SARS or bird flu, I swear) and working awfully hard getting all the work that she did in China ready for presentation.
The weather is ominous today.
Is what I've been told.
Pooped.
My God, it's September already!
I meant to say this earlier, but one thing that I really miss over here that Canada has is a strong sense of a social contract.
Elisabeth has just blown out of the house because she's late for a hair consultation and hasn't eaten her pancakes.
This was the conversation E&I had on the way to the pub last night:

Random Stuff
Mood:  chillin'
Topic: Stephen Says
Just got back from a long day at work and am chilling out before bed. So, what's new, you ask? Well, after two very, very slow weeks where it feels like I've been the only person in Britain actually working (And, if by working you mean sitting in the smoking lounge watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, The Jungle Book and other festive treats, lamenting the fact that no real work can be done because, well, everyone else in England is off, then yes, that is working. [Sorry, I lost the plot there, somewhere.]). So now I'm getting used to suddenly having to do things all over again which is weird because watching old childrens movies on television can be really quite addictive.

The weather's warm & humid, lots of drizzel and there's not a damn thing to eat over here. Even our massive stockpile of assorted flavours of squash has run dry. The so-called Christmas detox isn't happening by choice, folks, we just can't find time to go grocery shopping!

(Actually, that's not true; I'll be going tomorrow and right now, as I realize that I'm quite tired and that what I've written is quite pointless, I'm off to bed.)