The xmas pictures are up online. You can see our adventures in London for Katy's birthday as well as the mountains of food we had for xmas in Hinxton.
Enjoy.
Category: uncategorized
Craptabulous.
I'm in a astonishingly bad mood today, and I don't know why.
Walking the tightrope…
Feeling iffy these days. The holidays were a bit draining, and now I'm worrying about stuff that I shouldn't need to worry about (like the roof) and concentrate about stuff I should be worried about (like money, kids, immigration and long term life plans).
I have a feeling it's going to be a bumpy year, even if I'm actively hoping it won't be.
Spring cleaning
It's time for the yearly clearing out of the friend list. I've deleted a bunch of accounts that are either inactive, are never updated or that I don't read anymore. That should hopefully reduce the size of my full friend list to something more manageable.
Easter? Now???
We went grocery shopping last night. January 2nd. I was appalled to see that Tesco already has an Easter bunny section on display.
It's the second fucking day of the year! Easter is months away.
I hate people.
Let me call you sweetheart
A few days ago, Katy and I marathoned our way through the first season of Rome. Yesterday, we brought in the new year with a Grey's Anatomy marathon. We could have gone to the village hall and we had an invitation to go to Phil and Caroline's, but we were people'd out and we just wanted to spend some quiet time. It was a nice evening, and we finished the last episode with 5 minutes to spare for a bathroom break before the fireworks started going off on the BBC. Damn, they must have spent a small fortune for that display. Looked impressive.
Been feeling a bit bleh today. I think it's partly due to the diet of junk food and crap we've been living off since the holidays and partly due to the fact that I'm going back to work tomorrow (it's been almost 3 weeks now) and now the real world kicks back in. Bills and other money ugliness rear their head. We're going to have to deal with the estate agent to get them to fix the hole in our roof.
Ya. Get this. There have been hella strong winds in the past week hereabouts. Some time during the night this past Saturday, about a dozen roof tiles blew off. Katy noticed them scattered on our front lawn when she came back from work. There's a gaping hole in our roof that leads straight into our attic. We tried to call the estate agent but of course, they're closed. They had thoughtfully sent a letter a week before the holidays with emergency contact numbers. Unfortunately, the “emergency number whose answerphone will be checked many times daily” never actually called back and the “emergency mobile phone number if all else fails” is incorrect and missing a digit.
In a sense, we were lucky. It's not *that* big a hole, and though it has rained, it hasn't poured so there shouldn't be that much damp in the attic space. Furthermore, it's not our damn problem. That's one of the beauties of renting a house. All our stuff is insured and the house is their responsibility. Still, if it had been our boiler that broke down during new years, we would not have been amused.
In other news, I've gained weight. This doesn't surprise me, given the crap sugary, fatty, salty (tasty) diet we've been on for the past 3 weeks. I, like many others, will be hitting the gym when I get back to work. Honestly, I've let myself slip since the wedding, so I'm really going to make the effort of getting my ass back into shape. What makes me hate society as a whole though, is that the TV is full of weight-loss ads, diet and exercise program ads and – curiously – summer holiday ads. The first two are not surprising; advertisers are just tapping into the holiday guilt market. Katy rightfully commented on that last one though that it made perfect sense. Not only is it the next big expense for most families (barring paying off the xmas credit card debt) but it's also another way to tap into the guilt thing – you need to be slim to fit into that bikini for your holidays.
Bastards, the lot of them.
one of the bad things about moving to the UK
…is that I seem to have acquired a biological barometer just behind my right eye. Every time the weather takes a severe nosedive, I get a pisser of a headache – as in, can't-function-and-want-to-gouge-out-your-eye headache. Advil helps, but it's really annoying when one whole side of your head is pounding. Not fun, not fun at all.
The tree is dead, long life the tree!
Finally took down the cat toy xmas tree this morning, much to the dismay of the pussycat. Not doing much else at the moment. Katy's having a nap cause she's been working all week and her dad spread the cold bug love around.
I've been playing at ripping MP3s and organizing them on my shiny new ipod for most of the week, though I've been told that I can't use it in the house because the noise-blocking heatphones I also got work too well and Katy has to scream at me for me to hear her :)
Yet another reason why I'm glad I'm not american
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Selective Service System is making plans to test its draft machinery in case Congress and President Bush need it, even though the White House says it doesn't want to bring back the draft.
The service's director for operations and chief information officer, cautioned that the “readiness exercise” does not mean the agency is gearing up to resume the draft. “We're kind of like a fire extinguisher. We sit on a shelf,” Campbell told The Associated Press. “Unless the president and Congress get together and say, 'Turn the machine on' … we're still on the shelf.”
And a nice bit of spin control further down the article:
Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson prompted speculation about the draft Thursday when he told reporters in New York that “society would benefit” if the U.S. were to bring back the draft. Later he issued a statement saying he does not support reinstituting a draft.
That fits in quite nicely with recent news that the US is thinking of granting citizenship to immigrants who join the army/navy/airforce. If you don't get killed in some useless political exercise that should never have been started in the first place, you get a green card. Sign me up, boyo… NOT!
The cat is annoying me, part 2
I'm trying to do a bit of coding work, which is not helped by the fact that the cat is attacking his catnip mouse at my feet. Repeated attempts to throw him out of the office are useless, because the dumb thing apparently enjoys being flung in the air and always comes back for more… sigh.