blatherings

blatherings
the shallow side

I hope this is for real

JOHN CLEESE'S ADDRESS TO THE US CITIZENS


In light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately. Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (excepting Kansas, which she does not fancy).


Your new prime minister, Tony Blair, will appoint a governor for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:


You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up aluminium, and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour.' Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters and the suffix ize will be replaced by the suffix ise. Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up vocabulary).


Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as US English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of -ize. You will relearn your original national anthem, God Save the Queen.


July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.


You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. A permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.


All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and this is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour. The former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline)-roughly $6/US gallon. Get used to it.


You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.


The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.


Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as Good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie MacDowell attempt English dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.


You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty Seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies). Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable.


You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.


An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776). Thank you for your co-operation.
7.11.05 03:25


what a nice boy

I’ve added a link in my favourites to the musings of one of my former bartenders.  He came to ffice:smarttags" />Canada as an exchange student from Mexico and charmed the pants off of everyone.  My boss (who does scheduling for another venue) and I all but fought over who got to have him first.  Alas, he’s a nice boy…. For last year’s Monster Mash I went as a VamPirate and wore my leather corset.  He asked where we were all changing and I told him, and then asked if he’d help lace me into it.  His response was a very macho “Well, if S doesn’t mind then sure” which was foiled when his voice broke half way though.
9.11.05 06:41


meow.

I feel as though I should just rename this blog “alter to my kitty” but I can only imagine the jokes that K'vitsh would be cracking…  Bear (bare?) with me here, you’re in for ANOTHER blog entry about my damn cat.


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When Bella entered our lives, she’d been a street kitty for some indeterminate amount of time. Over the last month, we’ve been getting her up to date on all the things a cool kitty has… de-worming pills, vaccinations and having her girl bits removed.  After she went into heat, this last one became that much more essential.  While I got a giggle over the way she would throw herself into my lap and demand petting, the fact that it always ended with her presenting her ass in some freakish parody of a porn movie, got a little tired after a bit.  So this morning at 8 am we took the sweet Bella Sook to the vets.  Who were actually open that early.  The chick who works the front desk agreed it was scandalous that anything should happen before noon.  We left Bella in their care and toddled off to yoga which we’ve never been on time for, much less early.  S and I went about our day; going out to eat because the only thing I like to make in the kitchen is tea; running a couple of errands and then coming home to play video games (and this is why you can make fun of grad school to your heart’s content and I don’t give a damn).  I was about to phone RJ to get my hair done (and no, nothing’s been decided yet) when I was assaulted by the beep beep beep that tells me I have messages waiting to be ignored.  When Gav was a wee slip of kitten (and yes, once upon a time he was wee) and went in to have the snip he came out from the drugs earlier then the vet expected and they called me to haul him away early because he was too cantankerous for their puny cages.  Hoping beyond hope that it was call saying come get Bella, I checked the message.


 


They weren’t calling to ask me to come get her.  Or to say that the surgery was successful.  They wanted me to call back.  Right away.  Only the message was hours old.  I called, was put on hold, explained why I was calling, was put on hold again and eventually spoke to the vet.  The vet, BTW, is very sweet, has a direct way of offering options and I quite like.  She told me that when they did the blood work that morning Bella’s white blood cell count was VERY low and they were concerned about kitty leukemia and kitty aids.  They wanted to do more blood work before going any further.  I agreed and they said they’d call back in a few hours with more information.  I relayed this to S and he looked heartbroken.  I didn’t realize then what these illnesses are. 


 


So we had a gross afternoon of realizing just how attached we are to that little ball of fluff.  She’s noisy and complains and only cuddles when you’re trying to work and sometimes has bad breath.  The vet called back and said that the tests came back negative – she just seems to have a very low white blood cell count.  She said that stress lowers a cat’s white blood cell count, so that might account for some of it, although not usually to this degree.  So they are keeping her overnight (which they aren’t charging us for), will do another blood test in the morning (ditto) and then will spay her.  She’ll be back tomorrow afternoon.


 


I’m still a little freaked out.  I find myself thinking of how stressful this month has likely been for her.  She’s gone from being a stray and living who knows how stressfully, to adapting to our flat, the new smells and sounds and patterns.  And now she’s been packed into a box, taken to the vets, had a bunch of tests, is in a cage overnight, alone.  I know how much I hate going to the hospital, and I know what’s going on.  I hate this.  I can’t imagine how parents deal with the stress of their kids getting ill.  I think about how scared she is. 

9.11.05 07:34


Funny with a capital E

Courtesy (although is it really courtesy if I haven’t told him?) of Justin Guber, we have Hollaback girl. With a twist. An Indian twist. Click here
10.11.05 22:30


Suddenly

I want more tights.  Wonder why?
11.11.05 07:30


Don’t cha hate it when….

It’s a little after six in the morning.  I can’t sleep.  I have a stupidly busy weekend ahead of me, and I want to be well rested.  I tried going to bed at 2, even though I wasn’t tired.  At 4 I gave up tossing and turning and finished with the ninja death squad, thinking if nothing else, I could be quietly productive and it would eventually tire me out.


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It didn’t.


 


At 11, John is coming by and we’re dealing with Dinwoodie’s bottle room.  At 2 I’m seeing ffice:smarttags" />Chicago with P and then at 5.30 I have a show at the Horowitz.  At noon Sunday I’m working out with Jim and I work at 6 at the library.  I want to be full of energy when I go to the gym – I’ve been running late for the last week. I’m blaming it on the weather change, but I don’t know how that relates to my not sleeping.


 


Regardless, I’m full of physical energy although my mind feels dull and grouchy.  I’d like to go for a run, but it’s dark out and cold.  Both Bella and S are curled up asleep but I don’t know that I’ll be able to go to bed without waking them both up with my tossing and turning and just being physically uncomfortable.  So I’ve been sitting here, playing solitaire and lamenting my inability to sleep. 


 


And you know what happens when I get REALLY tired but can’t sleep?  The backs of my knees hurt.  I’ve told this to people before, and they’ve all looked at me as though I’m sugar cube short of a tea party, but there you have it.  The backs of my knees hurt.


 


 


This would be a lovely time to be sympathetic.
12.11.05 13:34


Where I begin with an exciting discussion of my socks and edit details from there

S has had a very bad week, which means mine was pretty stressful as well.  Mon and Tues were pretty much spent thinking about his paper, except for a short trip clothes shopping with Kvitsh, where I bought a new set of socks.  I like to have all my socks look the same so that when it comes to doing laundry/getting ready in the mornings, it takes less time.  For the last couple of years I’ve been mending these socks and they were getting a little on the threadbare side.  It’s starting to sink in that I can afford to buy new stuff for myself.  So I have nine pairs of black dress socks, plus the two crazy ones I bought to dress as Pippi Longstockings and then I bought a pair of grey argyle wool socks that have some polka dots.  Really, when my week is so crappy that the highlight was a safe day of buying socks, you get the idea.


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The rest of the week was a lot of stress…. paper … car accident …. chaos at work …. Dr’s apt … release party… The party has been a source of stress for me for some time.  I don’t like social situations, I don’t like poetry readings and unless I’m dancing, I don’t like bars.  But we had three times the number of people we did last year, we sold out of copies – I’ll actually have to do a second run – and despite the original disorganization on behalf of the bar, everything ran very smoothly.  I got to meet Sexy Grandpa, put some faces to some poetry and Barb has approved my idea for Comp Lit t-shirts.  So, aside from a boy not showing up, the night went well.  S finally had a chance to drink himself silly and I managed to mingle. 


 


The weekend has just been spent working with the secret ninja death squad and watching movies.  Its been nice.  S and I tried a new restaurant last night – the Urban Dinner which is in walking distance and hand a funky tattooed waitress.  So all is well now.
20.11.05 21:51


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