Choo Choo!
"All aboard the job train!"
(As Stephen holds his breath...)

Helloooooo from Woking
Mood:  happy
Now Playing: beach Boys Pet Sound
Hello fellow Canadians and other people, this is Susan speaking. I am here in Woking, UK with these two special people,drinking Sainsbury's select Bulgarian wine. There is a statue from the space ship from "War of the Worlds" in the town square, Stephen took a picture of me today with it, just as I cracked my head of the leg, cool.........there is also a WOLSEY Place!!!!!!! My dog is famous!!!!! We play BOGGLE and I loose, sad face!!!!!! I will certainly get into shape this visit as we WALK everywhere and Stephen even is slow motion is six strides ahead of me and Elisabth even walks faster, or so I am told,I will find out tormorrow. There is a wonderful magic tree half way to their flat and I will take a picture of the two wonderful people up the tree tormorrow. Over and out from Woking..........

Boogle Boogle
Mood:  surprised
Now Playing: the wind--and NOT Andrew W K(rap)
Stephen's mother, Susan, has finally arrived in Woking. After over a year of planning, Susan has flown into town, and bestowed the gift of the boggle box to our humble home.

I was supposed to have my first Italian lesson this evening, but a few problems have arisen, namely, not being able to afford a bicycle or cab fare to get me from A to B, and it is an hours walk each way. Not to mention the impossibility of walking back home at night. But the main reason for not going, was to spend a little time with Susan. We have played 20 games of boggle since her arrival yesterday, and 1 game of monopoly. Much more fun to look forward to...and yes, Stephen has won all 20 games. But Elisabeth won Monopoly, as per usual.

During the day Stephen and Susan walked the Basingstoke canal between our apt. and downtown, and ate sandwiches. Elisabeth went to work, and was generally productive.

oh me oh my, what a crazy world we live in. And what oh what has brought us all to England? Couldn't be the standard of living...no, not the health care (I had to cancel my appointment with the ear specialist because I can't afford the train fare), and hmmm, could it be the weather, the food?

Still trying to work it all out...

E

Wacky wedding shows
Mood:  happy
Now Playing: Britney Spears (don't ask...)
Wow. Wacky wedding shows in Woking. The only free thing that we were able to get was a candle, though Elisabeth went into business mode and started inspecting everyone's wedding photo albums so I supposed we did get something out of it. There was a wedding dress fashion show with thoroughly uninspiring and nervous looking models (I swear, I thought one was going to vomit on stage...) and lots and lots and lots of people eager to divorce you from your money.

Weddings over here cost an average of 16,000 pounds. That's the vicinity of 40,000$ Canadian. Compared to the breezy 5 grand that was spent on ours, I have a hard time imagining what all the money could have been spent on. Sure 2 or 3 grand would have made things a bit easier, we would have gotten a honeymoon... Bleah, I'm not thinking about my wedding - Madonna's singing Like a Prayer now so all's good.

Elisabeth's making an apple pie - that'll chase all those horrible wedding thoughts away. Mind you, the one thing that's absolutely clear to me is that I'm so glad that ours turned out the way it did compared to the cheesy, traditional, pre-packaged, identical-except-for-the-guests, 16-grand-in-UK-sterling weddings that were being marketed to all the suckers at the exhibition. Here's to personalized weddings and Duran Duran (Who are now playing on the radio).

Uh oh... bad haircut alert
Mood:  d'oh
Oh man, I screwed up at the barbers and boy do I have a bad haircut. Stupid British fashions. Good thing Elisabeth isn't here right now - but I imagine she's gonna be pissed off. I'm not too sure how I'm going to find a job now. At least it'll grow out (Or fall out as is my case).

Update: Nah, she's home and isn't reaching for the divorce papers. All is well except for the fact that I look like a Brit andd will have to shave more frequently.

Lookin' forward to tomorrow - there's a wediing show in town and we're gonna pretend that we're getting hitched and see if we can get free stuff.

OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD AHHH IT'S THE APOCALYPSE
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: BBC radio madness coming live from Westminister
Bless the British. E&I have always felt that the only thing that could ever get a Brit excited is football. But woah, fox hunting! Riots outside Westminster! Old conservatives in Burburry jackets being beaten by bobbies! Blood gushing from ears! The house of commons being invaded!

Man-o-man, if it wasn't so goofy it would be pathetic. >sigh< I suspect that if my family were to read this I'd be excommunicated but seriously, my official position is this: A Japanese tourist on the side of the road taking pictures of the shenanigans thinking 'wait'll I show these to the folks back home. They won't believe it!'

Oops - this just in while I was running the spell checker: 7 people have been arrested over this apocalyptic insanity.

WTF? - Job fairs
Mood:  d'oh
Now Playing: BBC World News
**Rant warning - filthy language is likely to ensue.

So this is me getting frustrated and bored with unemployment. My mind harkens back to a song lyric "Successful unemployment is more challenging than having a job." Ain't that the truth, brother. I shaved, trimmed my sideburns, gelled my hair, removed any offensive piercings, threw on my nice shirt, strapped on a tie and headed for the Woking job fair after dropping off some applications I'd filled out yesterday.

Wow, Stephen thinks, the H.G. Wells Center is swanky. Polished old wood floors, shiny steel fixtures, Safe but elegant art prints, a chi-chi secratery to point you in the right direction. Good thing I dressed up, I thought. This is my ticket to the big time!

(I'm realizing that Iceberg Slim's Pimp writing style is rubbing off on me - apologies.)

Upon entering, I realized I'd made a terrible mistake. Little did I know that proper attire for the job fair was your team's football jersey, sneakers, a toque (Which E&I call condom hats - long story) and a pair of eyes that say 'I smoked a bowl 1/2 an hour ago.' >sigh< I thought all this would give me a leg up except that 50% of the stalls were all the employment agencies that took my CV last week and don't return my calls. I don't want to say that all employment agencies are useless; all but 1 are.

The other 45% of the stalls were fat yobbos in wool turtlenecks eating the candy in the little baskets that every stall had in order to entice you in (I admit that I was tempted by a tasty red lollipop). They were looking to hire drivers. i.e., people who want to drive delivery vans around and deliver pizza, kebabs, McChinese food and curries in vehicules I'm not qualified to drive.

As I left, the last stall caught my eye - The British army was here. How fitting, perhaps I should join the army. After all, for most of the yobbos skulking around the hall, wondering when they could suck down their next pint of cider, this is the job most appropriate for them - drinking and getting paid to run around terrorizing the minorities they profess to hate over here.

Instead I headed back to the mall and dropped my CV off at a jewlery store; this job, at least, will involve dressing in something a bit more elegant than in something I'd be likely to sleep in. Then off to the market for farm fresh peppers and onions.

As I was heading back, something that had been niggling away at the back of my skull all morning suddenly became clear: There weren't even any rides at the fair!

What's good for the goose...
Mood:  quizzical
Now Playing: Birds chirping
When confronted by things in England that are totally backward to other Western countries (Such as their resistance to putting flouride in the water because 'there's no prooven link that it actually does anything... and might actually be a danger to our bodies') we often do this sarcastic routine that goes like this: "Well, if it worked 100 years ago, it's got to still work today. After all, nothing's changed in the last hundred years."

So today on the BBC, it looks like they're going to officially, 100%, no matter what, ban fox hunting (With dogs, going into effect 2 years from now, with the possibility of the ban being overturned during that time.). Naturally, people are UP IN ARMS about this. The pro-fox hunting guy on the radio today made his point on the necessity of fox hunting based on the structure of the feudal system in 1100AD. The presenter pointed out that hisinformation applied to situations 900 years ago and the man replied (I kid you not) "I don't think much has changed since then."

Today's mission: Try to find one thing that's changed in the last 900 years. I think you'll find it's trickier than you think!

Living in England doesn't change you, except...

Buh?
Mood:  lazy
Now Playing: Thump thump from whatever the guy downstairs is playing
'Buh?' pretty much sums up this weekend. Yep, we did a big fat zero. Lessee...

Yesterday: A trip to the library and lots of reading. Elisabeth got out a book on etiquette and manners and we were pleasantly surprised to discover that we actually know what we're doing when it comes to this kind of thing. And how many people who think they do actually don't. I finished up Douglas Coupland's Girlfriend in a Coma and was reminded by how, as a writer, he irritates me so now I'm reading a book about what it's like to be a pimp. It's called Pimp and written my a dude named Iceberg slim with an introduction by Ice T so you know it's legit. It's also got a glossary of 'pimp' terms which is handy. ... If our money troubles over here keep persisting, I know a way to book me some scratch.

Today: We went on a tour of the local theatre where Jack the Ripper's going to play and went to Carters Steam Fair. Those of you who've been following this web site might remember the fun we had there last year in Englefield Green on the bumper cars (Dadgem's in England) and how Elisabeth flirted with one of the carneys. Well, that same damn carney was there this year and, low and behold, who starts taking pictures of him? Hmmm... I made sure they were all deleted post haste... We were also good and resisted the urge to spend money. So instead we headed home where Elisabeth baked some cakes and melted part of the carpet.