Blah blah continued
Now Playing: Beirut - Gulag Orkestra / The Lon Gisland EP
Topic: Stephen Says
Bah! I was going to put up some pictures but the computer decided that the camera's battery was flat so now I can't.

Another week and what can I say? Not too much to be honest - E&I worked and spent our first weekend together in ages which has been very, very pleasant. It's nice to be reminded that we get along really quite well and don't hate each others guts. Long may love last.

Any post-Christmas dieting has gone out the window as Elisabeth and I have been gorging ourselves on utter crap (and not quite so crap) and she has been managing to drink more than me over the last few days which is quite spooky. That said, I think she's needed a good dose of unwinding for a while and it's nice to see her cut loose. She's all aplogetic for it now and is making an Armenian soup for dinner while I drink Carlsberg and eat bubbly mint crisp flavoured chocolate on a crunchy chocolate biscuit covered in milk chocolate.

I was dragged into Guildford yesterday where we window shopped, bought music and gorged ourselves on Indian food for lunch. A meal that reduced Elisabeth to an IQ of about 12 as papadoms and aloo gobi replaced her brain cells. I, however, stuck to the biryani, naan and pints of Kingfisher so that I was able to let out farts repugnant enough to upset the emo kid in our carriage so much that he and his fake Keds had to turn away from me in disgust.

Today was a typical paper & pub day for me while Elisabeth shopped for Egypt-wear. e.g., cool conservative clothes for a hot Muslem country.

(Tha's gotta be a great title for something.)

Another week begins soon where I will work (Not that I haven't this weekend as I was receiving particulary annoying 'what do I do?' phone calls all Friday night and more calls today which I've chosen to ignore), Elisabeth will work, etc... She's got another driving test on Thursday and I'm spending Valentines day doing a sleep in. Ah the romance! Can you smell it?

Smells like a biryani passed through my system.

Pics to follow should the laptop decide the camera's battery is suficiently charged...

Blah blah
Now Playing: Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, are you the Destroyer?
Topic: Stephen Says
Been a busy couple of days for me - I worked 9 days without a break and as such have come slightly close to losing my mind (There was a dark spot around 10AM yesterday where I may have actually lost it of a half hour). I've got my one day off today and E is out tonight getting a free reflexology treatment so I'm going to wallow in my own crapulence, get boozy and watch violent films (Depending on what Blockbuster's got, I'm thinking: Day of the Dead, The Devil's Rejects, Battle Royale, Suspira...)

I'll also be rocking out a little. Got the new Of Montreal and Cult of Luna albums so I can go all bi-polar by alternating between feel-good-glam-pop and Swedish Doom metal. Huzzah!

It's cold again in England and we're expecting two fingers of snow on Friday and I can hear the Apocalypse Siren sounding as people prepare for the end of civilised life. I feel a little superior on my bike as I zip past people scraping off their cars however an asswipe in a Vauxhaul pissed me off the other day and almost gave me some kind of come-uppance: I was at an intersection & saw him coming and was in one of those Do Not Hesitate situations where if I hesitated, I would have to wait for him to pass. I didn't (for once!) and started to go except that the dingus in the Vauxhaul accelerated to cut me off only he was also turning right so he had to break very suddenly as well and skidded into the intersection and came pretty damn close to hitting me. Of course, I hadn't moved because I'd seen the loser's plan but wasn't expecting him to turn right because, leah, I'm rambeling. It was annoying, anyway.

As Elisabeth has already mentioned, we went to see Pinter's The Dumbwaiter last night. I really, really liked it; Elisabeth didn't. I suspect that she thought it was going to be something it wasn't. In any case, it starred comedian Lee Evans and Jason Issacs (aka Lucius Malfoy from the Harry Potter films). So in terms of the Elisabeth and me seeing Harry Potter movie actors competition, she leads 2-1.

White Rabbits!
Now Playing: See below
Topic: Stephen Says
I don't know if anyone out there reading this is into the whole doom metal/ math rock/ post metal scene (Of which there are, as far as I can tell exactly 4 bands of any note) But holy shit, Isis is the best thing since sliced bread (Or at least Neurosis) and is definitely this seasons black. Just picked up thir new album "In the Absence of Truth" and it's about to garner heavy airplay on our CD player much to, I'm sure, Elisabeth's displeasure. Their previous album "Panopticon" is also pretty much holy shit amazing.

And on a completely seperate musical vein, I can't stress how amazing The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain is. Their album "The Secet of Life" is just jaw droppingly good and features the most amazing versions of classics like Miss Dyno-mite, Hard to Handle and Le Freak performed by a ukulele orchestra that you'll ever hear. If you want to take a chance on something totally random that will knock your socks off, this is the most important thing you'll buy this month.

It's team building day tomorrow so if I remember, I'll bring the camera so you can see lots of pictures of me and Elisabeth making an ass out of ourselves.

Winding down
Now Playing: random 'new rave' songs
Topic: Stephen Says
Huh. It feels like the blog is winding down a little bit. We always planned for it to be a 5 year project that spanned our five years in England, however over the last 6-8 weeks there hasn't been much activity either from Elisabeth and myself or from our visitors (down from over 300 a day [yikes!] to twenty-four [mostly Elisabeth and myself]). So what does this mean?

Does the blog have a mind of its own and is it telling us something?

As some of you out there may be aware, I'm going to be effectively demoted in April (or earlier) thanks to one of my favorite pieces of beaurocratic jargon: 'management inefficiency.' In other words, had upper management been efficient and confirmed my post months ago instead of dragging their feet, forgetting and {insert any other random excuse in here}, and I'm losing my position to someone who is less skilled and appropriate for the position.

As it is, I'm 95% likely to be leaving the job when she comes in since I've been effectively rendered useless(I'm using the time in Egypt to formalize my final decision - I don't want to be too spontanious with this - that's what got us coming to England in the first place). And since that means that I'll have to find a job in our last year here (Which will be tedious and I'd only most likely be there for a maximum of 9 months anyway) and since Elisabeth isn't exactly married to her job, there's no reason why we don't move back to Canada this spring/ summer.

Elisabeth has been considering this longer than I have and says it would be amazingly easy to just pack up and go (keep in mind that she works in shipping) with just a few weeks notice.

The downside is that we've started to put down roots here and we'll really miss our friends but that's really the only negative. Anyway, things to ponder...

stuff pt. 39787473c in an endless series of stuff
Topic: Stephen Says
It's been a while since the last update...

Me: Been working a lot. Management kinda sucks because it's a headache and a half. The Infiltrator hasn't started yet and today was, technically, her deadline so I should find out whether I've been demoted (Screwed over) this Saturday, Sunday or Monday. All days that I'm working (Tuesday too). Elisabeth is majorly pissed off that today, on my day off, I was woken up at 9:15AM, asking if I could come in to work (I said no) and, within seconds of switching my phone back on after seeing a play tonight at 9PM (see below), I was rung by work asking me to solve a problem (Which I deferred).

She: Is working and has a million and one driving lessons this weekend (2, actually) and her test is on Thursday. Probably had more to say but I'll let her say it. Whenever.

We saw a fascinating version of Sarah Kane's Blasted tonight. follow the link for details about it that I don't feel like getting into. As a play it was okay but disappointing. As a play that incorpoates access for blind, deaf and non-disabled people, it was a rousing success. If you've ever wanted to see a play where a man is raped with the stump of another mans severed leg, this is the show for you.

Nothing more to say other than London sucks.
Deal with it.
rock'n roll.

Pizza madness
Topic: Stephen Says
We got back last night after a truely bizarre shop in Sainsburys where I bought random things that we could eat for dinner (flapjacks, nachos & cheese, pizzas, carrots & humus, stilton, crackers, whisky, advocaat, etc.) and ate lots for dinner until I was full and then ate an entire pizza on top of that and spent the rest of the evening in excrutiating pain with a grossely distended stomach, spacing out and writing pizza poetry:

Pizza gives me pleasure,
Beyond any measure.
It's crust is a must,
but is just not as tasty,
as the cheesy tomato pasty.

and

Pizza, pizza,
Why'd you hurt me?
ALL I WANTED WAS CHEESY GOODNESS,
And maybe some grease.
But now I'm so full,
I think I'm gonna die.

I'm still so full this morning that I'm only having a smoothie for breakfast (and a few flapjacks). Elisabeth is having her smoothie with advocaat so I don't know what to say about that. (More poetry!) The weather's beautiful - sunny and cold. We're off for a bike ride along the canal in a bit.

Toodleoo!

Saturday morning stuff
Now Playing: Tom Waits - Orphans
Topic: Stephen Says
"Television is more interesting than people. If it were not we should have people standing in the corners of our rooms." -Alan Coren, 1938- , English writer

Um, yeah. That's neither witty nor intelligent, Alan. Who'd you ribe to get that stuck in Elisabeth's diary.

All week long we've been de-cluttering our flat. At first I was spazzing out and trying to figure out how we've gotten all this stuff all of a sudden and Elisabeth pointed out that we've just celebrated Christmas and it's normal to suddenly have a bunch of stuff.

So it's been off to the charity shops with old clothes, pots, pans, tea pots, books, etc. We've also cleared out our shelves and have recycled 3+ years of keleptomania and gotten rid of all the various pint glasses that we've stolen or accidentally 'borrowed' from pubs.

I've realized that I really like getting rid of stuff. Hence the baldness. It's lie every day's a trip to the charity shop for my head.

We watched The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou last night and were left totally unimpressed. Please, can someone explain it? I get the sense that Elisabeth and I both missed something but it really wasn't as funny/ clever/ original/ interesting/ whatever as I was led to believe. Or was it?

We're off to see the Last King of Scotland today which promises to be horrible and depressing and much more up our alley. I somehow get the sense that there aren't and Jaguar Sharks in it...

Joke:
Now Playing: Joanna Newsom - The Milk Eyed Mender
Topic: Stephen Says
Joke I heard on the BBC:

"For a Christian to say he hates gays is like a Jew saying he hates Rabbis."

PS- 600th entry(!)

(Edited for terrible grammar!)

Oh, and another thing...
Topic: Stephen Says
According to the lovely lady who runs Life on Manitoulan, it's International De-lurking Week. So please, use this opportunity to say 'Hi!'

Yay!
Topic: Stephen Says
Guess who's going to Egypt?

Now that I'm not sick any more, I'm feeling especially chipper and efficient and have booked us for a week in Luxor in March. Happyness ensues.

I've also booked tickets to see Sarah Kane's Blasted performed entirely with actors with physical disabilities next week but the Egypt thing is far more exciting.

I will untie Elisabeth and let her out of the airing closet sometime in the near future so that she can blog again.