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3rd blog of the day!
Mood:  caffeinated
Now Playing: The BBC bobble heads discussing the extent to which Bush is screwed with regard to his foreign policy.
This is part of a real-life e-mail I got a few minutes ago from my darling wife. I'll let it speak for itself:

Hey-

Guess where I was this morning: LONDON! I got on the wrong train and had to plead with the ticket office at Waterloo not to fine me #15.00. I ended up having to pay for a 1-way to Woking from London, #7.70 and arrived at work at 10:30. Can you please the insanity! I am such a boggle brain!

So I wouldn't mind a tipple of vino tonight!!!

No blogging for a week and then 2 entries in 1 day
Mood:  silly
Now Playing: Public Enemy - Muse-Sick in Hour Mess-Age
Ok, ok, I'm going to try something...

...you see last year, I bought Elisabeth this little Zen sand garden in a box for her desk so that it would help her zone, I mean chill out at work when things got stressful. Unfortunately the sand would sort of get everywhere and, as they say in Kabuki-land, it was "not a very useful present."

...so in the spirit of not learning from my mistakes, I bought her a banzaii in a box this year. Grow a banzaii from a seed, etc.

...in the spirit of learning from her mistakes, she hasn't taken it to work and I'm going to grow it myself. I started yesterday and am soaking the seeds, I've got to cold-stratify them for a week and, should they not have disintegrated in the mean time, will be sowing the seeds in a little over a weeks time.

SO!

...in the spirit of silly contests that we rarely fulfil our half of the bargain in, here's my contest: The winner gets a small jar (very small) of swanky marmalade. Why have I named my soon-to-be-tree Buckaroo? Post your answers on the message board and you could have some tasty marmalade!

Where did all the blogging go?
Mood:  lazy
The way of the dodo, I think. It has been super-duper quiet over here. Elisabeth's eased into her job and the nice thing is that she's not working the insane hours that she once was. I've eased into this job searching thingy.

I had a good interview yesterday and the job's mine if I want it, I just don't know if I do. It's a trainee position with a small, established company that's got a very good record of having it's employees stick around for years and years and years. The downside is that I'll be doing repetitive work that's disturbingly like tele-marketing for the first few months until I get moved over and even then, I'm having a hard time convincing myself that I'll like what I'm doing, even though the people there seem really nice (There are only 4 others in the company). Especially considering that I've sent off applications for jobs that I'd much rather have but won't hear from them for a while. Arg, the conflict! Advice, anyone? I've got to let them know by tomorrow, I suppose. Monday at the maximum, maximum latest.

The weather's been all rainy & drizley over here. A damp chill that buggers up my bad wrist but makes everything a shocking neon-green that you just don't see in Canada. When I go out to pick up a job paper, I'll rub some of the neon moss on it & see what happens.

It's Georgie-boy's coronation today and I hope that you all join is with the screaming today.

Getting Away from the Land Where the Sun Never Rises
Mood:  celebratory
Caloo Calay! Baloo Balay! (Stephen has already harshly made fun of me for using those "words") Today my friends, is a great day. Stephen has given me the best Christmas gift (albeit late) that I could wish for: A Weekend in Paris (11-13th-just before that dreaded Val-tine day). It's offical and confirmed...we will fly outta this country on the 11th, and spend 2 days in La Belle Ville (sorry MTL). We will be staying in a 4 star hotel across from the Louvre, oooo la la...I've already cleaned and pressed my French Maid's outfit...boy am I kidding!

And just so you can begin to understand why I am so happy to be getting outta here, see pictures below in what I call: What Goes Around, Comes Around

Oh Yeah and tomorrow is my half birthday.

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Unemployment Ranting
Mood:  caffeinated
Now Playing: Turtletoes - Jackersville
Weird happenings in the job-front:

1)One place that sent me an application pack (Which I mailed back to them on Monday) has sent me another one. WTF? I don't know if other places have this ridiculous application pack thing. ... not only is it an employment form and equal opportunities form, it's about 20 pages of information about the job, employer, pamphlets, job policy statements, a historical perspective of the employer, backgound information and, usually, a "with compliments" cover page.

It's a waste of paper and, usually, a waste of time. I've been trying to figre out why they send them out; I suppose that it's so that you're sure that you actually want the job, but to me that just encourages people to haphazardly request job applications and create most waste. Perhaps it's to test peoples levels of stupidity - at the interview when they ask "Do you have any questions?" you're supposed to answer "No, I read all the information in the application pack." Arg!

Applying for jobs at our oh-so-wonderful council is even more disturbing - their packs are professionally bound, contain folders & laminated covers with multi-coloured pages. Our council tax pounds at work.

2) What's up with the insanely low wages? I had to turn down a job that I really wanted because the most they would offer me is 13,000 pounds and no prospects of advancement. This particular company has been advertizing for months and no wonder they can't fill a post - their offer is at least 3,000 pa to little to support one person living on their own.

And then I find out that the wretched jewelry store I almost worked at pays 5.50 an hour. I mean damn, that's less than to bookstore pays Christmas temps like me. No wonder they're still looking for people.

With salaries this low, a half assed life of crime seems a sensible alternative. I'd only have to rob people one night a week. And the sad thing is that I've got a sure fire way to do it. ... The carelessness and outright stupidity that people have when it comes to keeping thir pin number safe would make it a breeze.

But that's another rant for another day...

PS- Breaking news: They're looking at replacing referees at football games with video cameras. There; that's got to be the dumbest thing I've heard all day.

They call me MISTER Dole Scum
Mood:  chillin'
Now Playing: Andrew W.K. - I Get Wet
What better music to listen to when you're about to go on the dole? It took 22 minutes on hold, but I've begun the proceedings to start collecting govenment money that I neither earned NOR deserve. Personally, I blame the way job searching goes on over here. Back home, you see an ad, respond to it, they give you a call, an interview a day or two later and you're hired and start next Monday. This is how it works over here:

You get the application and send it off. ... Time passs until the application deadline passes (Usually 2 weeks after the ad first went out) ... Time passes and you're called about an interview - next week. You go to the interview and ... Time passes until you hear from them and then you get to start a few weeks to a month later. Even the lady at the Job Center agreed that it takes too long!

In retrospect, it was a stroke of luck that Elisabeth's company wasn't like that - at the time she did the whole interview thing, we were very close to being in some serious financial trouble. Had they have decided to hire her the Britsh Way, we'd have been living inside royal Holloways library.

Mind you, getting the dole also takes a million years. The person who advised me to go on it, didn't get her money until after she started working, 3 weeks later. I get to take an extensive phone interview Thursday to finalize things. Yikes!

PS - Andrew W.K.'s "Ready to Die" is probably the best rock'n roll song EVER. Silly Elisabeth thought he was an 80's rocker and didn't beleive me when I said he was a contemporary >ahem< rocker. Although, I do understand her confusion; he looks disturbingly like Cro-Magnon Man.

Really Cute Picture Alert!
Now Playing: BBC Radio 4
I'm eating dinner at 9:30pm tonight. Stephen is at a Christmas party with his old co-workers at the Bookstore (they are a bit disorganized I think, seeing as this is the Christmas party for 2003-) So I stayed late a work cutting up prints into 30x30 cm blocks in order to select the best images for our new Block Print range. Ooo woo...It's positively inspiring : p

But, to cheer us all, here is the CUTEST pix in the world!

Workin for the Weekend
Now Playing: The Tea Kettle
Oh what a lovely weekend so far!

Last night we went into London to see a Canadian theatre show "Patience" by Jason Sherman with one of Stephen's old classemates and her beau.

The evening was very pleasent and refreshing, as watching the play transported us back to Canada where people dress like hell, swear casually and speak without pretention. The play itself is a good specimen of what Canadian theatre is generally like...full of promise but comparatively unrefined.

This morning we had a large breakfast (as per usual fried potatoes & eggs) and then set out to town for coffee & groceries.

We stopped into Boots Pharmacy and had my glasses adjusted, as one side was bent and sliding down my face. The friendly glasses-man asked me how I put on and take off my glasses; with one hand, or with two? I performed a test, and discovered I habitually use only my right hand to take off my glasses, which incidently is the same side that is bent on my glasses.

So TIP OF THE DAY: Always put on and take off one's glasses using TWO hands.

To honour the New Year tradition of turning a new leaf, we are indeed attemtping to become healthier and are drinking less alcohol. On the other hand we have consumed a combined total of 18 bags of crisps today (the small bags of course).

On the weather front, it has been unusually windy the past two days with consistent gale-force winds that keeps us up at night. But while in London, along with the trash being blown over and around town, were abandoned Christmas trees being blown across busy streets like tumbelweeds.

BLOG CHALLENGE: tell us your most bizarre wind-related stories (in 4 sentances or less).

Bumpa Lump
Now Playing: Sepultura--Straighthate
The music was not my choice.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

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

For the gals out there: Throw away your lipstick! It's all about Lipgloss...no worries about applying without a mirror...no funny looks when a glossy sheen is left on the rim of your coffee mug or cigarrette (not that I would know). It's subtle, fruity and fun. Buy a high quality gloss that won't dry out your lips, and you won't regret it.

Ok--onto smarter topics: Are there any Red Dwarf fans out there? We are currently battleing through the show season by season, and I must say, I am enjoying it. This is a surprise to me, because when seeing the show in Canada (pre-move to England) I thought the show was for Mega Nerds. I didn't get it. Now that I've lived in this unhappy country, I can see that in a country filled with Mega Nerds, it is simply a show about contemporary culture, and therefore find it entertaining and amusing.

[Stephen here: From my MA class notes: Interesting cultural thing: "In Canada: Love of Montey Python = nerd. In UK it's standard cultural practise." Read into it what you will.]

ON a literary front, it's all about Africa. Jane, my co-worker from South Africa, with whom we spent Christmas, leant us two books : "Disgrace" by J.M. Coetezee and "Don't Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight" by Alexandra Fuller which I have/am fully enjoying. It has given valuable insight into the shamefull behaviour of British Colonists, and their children who must try to integrate and create a new hybrid culture. Tough and humbling.

[Stephen here: I'm reading "Chopper," "Chopper 2," and "Chopper 3" by Mark Brandon "Chopper" Read. The autobiographies of an Australian toecutter whose covered with tattoos, plays Russian roulette for fun and makes his opponents chew on razor blades at knife point. Dumb and violent.]

So we have heralded the new year in with our predicatble cocktail of smart and dumb. Or asshole and not-asshole (as Stephen so eloquently has requested me to state). As we like to think of our existence in Woking as: Cultured Yobs

[Yob=white trash in Britania)

So, after much arm twisting, her are those pictures:

{Edited for aparant nudity}