• Keira Knightley. Like there was any real competition. And I’m not talking about the crazy mega-thin Keria that seems to be so prevalent in the magazines, but rather the Keira in Love Actually. You know that opening scene. Guys and girls alike can agree she looks stunning. Oh yeah… the accent. It’s, uh, British… Oh come on, you knew it was just a pretext to post pics of hot girls, right? Best get that out of the way from the start.
  
  
• Kate Beckinsale. Sounds sounds cool while kicking ass. And wearing tight black leather. As an added bonus, in Underworld Evolution she strips off for what seems to be the weirdest sex scene ever. If you’ve seen the movie, you know what I mean. But I’m not complaining.
  
  
• Angelina Jolie. Ok, so techincally she’s American. But she did have a British accent for the Tomb Raider movies. And that did make her hotter (more so than the enhanced boobs). She may have gone a little crazy recently, what with trying to save the world one african baby at a time, but she was definitely hot for a while there.
  
  
• Catherine Zeta Jones. She’s done some crap movies, it has to be admitted. But, generally, she’s hot. It’s worth noting that in Love Actually, the scene where Hugh Grant as the Prime Minister begins giving a moving speech about the contribution of Britain to the world, he was supposed to include Catherine Zeta Jones’ breasts. Hughie didn’t want to do it… but the sentiment remains. Pretty sure she has an awesome posh accent as well, but I can’t really remember.
  
  

So without further ado, enjoy this hystierical list that I did not create, but rather stole straight from a chain email.

1. If you are over forty, and you have a washboard stomach, you are gay. It means you haven’t sucked back enough beer with the boys and have spent the rest of your free time doing sit-ups, aerobics, and doing the Oprah diet.

2. If you have a cat, you are a Flaaaaming homo. A cat is like a dog, but gay — it grooms itself constantly but never scratches itself, has a delicate touch except when it uses its nails, and whines to be fed. And just think about how you call a dog… “Killer, come here! I said get your ass over here, Killer!” Now think about how you call a cat…”Bun-bun, come to daddy, snookums!” Jeeezus, you’re fit to be framed, you’re so gay.

3. If you suck on lollipops, Ring-Pops, baby pacifiers, or any such nonsense, rest assured, you are a Gaylord. A straight man only sucks on BBQ ribs, crab claws, raw oysters, crawfish guts, pickled pigs feet, or tits. Anything else and you are in training and undeniably a fag.

4. If you refuse to take a dump in a public bathroom or piss in a parking lot, you crave a deep homosexual relationship. A man’s world is his bathroom; he defecates and urinates wherever he pleases.

5. If you drink anything other than regular coffee. A straight man will never be heard ordering a “Decaf Soy Latte”. If you’ve put a Decaf Soy Latte to your lips, you’ve had a man there, too. (Ok, couldn’t resist one little addition - apparently, it could be the soy that is actually making the people gay!. How weird.)

6. If you know more than six names of non standard colors or four different types of dessert other than ice cream and pie, you might as well be handing out free ass passes. A real man doesn’t have memory space in his brain to remember all of that crap. If you can pick out chartreuse or you know what a “fressier” is you’re gay. And if you can name ANY type of textile other than cotton or denim, you are faggadocious.

7. If you drive with both hands on the wheel, forget it, you’re dying to tune a meat whistle. A man only puts both hands on the wheel to honk at a slow-ass driver or to cut the jerk off. The rest of the time he needs that hand to change the radio station, eat a hamburger, or hold his beer.

8. If you do not send this off to all the males on your email list because you are afraid of hurting their feelings then you are definitely on the
verge of being a fudgepacker. (Told you it was from my email box.)

The greatest incarnation of November is undoubtedly Movember. Across multiple countries, men unite under a single cause, returning to the seventies by growing (or, rather, trying to grow) a nice, thick moustache in support of Prostate Cancer Awareness, and general man-ness.

I wasn’t planning on taking part. While a keen observer, and supporter of the cause (the world needs more facial hair, and less prostate cancer) I had already cultivated a rather stunning beard / goatee which had taken a good amount of time - I didn’t relish the idea of shaving a good part of it off, or even starting afresh for a month.

But then everything changed. Or should I say, my mind got changed for me.

Initially I wanted to use an automatic upgrade plugin, but it failed so I had to do everything manually, which took a bit more time. Still, it went without a hitch, and now here I am, all upgraded.

Even got around to installing a database manager so it’s nice and easy to back everything up.

All that’s left is to tinker with this theme (or, alternatively choose a different one) to use the new tagging features… but that can be a job for another day.

Edit: Ok, there were issues. Couldn’t post anything for a while there. Kept getting a weird issue. Turns out the Sitemaps plugin was conflicting, and needed to be updated. All should be fine now.

“Have you ever done the vertical bungie there?”

“Yeah of course, it’s fucking awesome”

“Yeah, but have you ever done it on acid?”

God I hope they’re just trying to sound cool. If not, it could be worse. I mean, I didn’t think people even did Acid these days - isn’t it all P, P, and more P?

Just thought I’d share

It was amazing the lengths the higher up people went to to organise everything, all without giving us, the cafe, the full run down of what was going on. You know, so we could organise and prepare for it better. We were simply asked to reserve three tables in the corner.

Palin arrived with a couple of people, they sat down, chatted, and left. Fairly low key.

Suddenly the chefs arrive with special food for afternoon tea, fussing that we ddin’t reserve enough tables and should have saved one for them to set up the food on. Would have been nice if we’d known there was going to be special food coming up to start with. We all figured he’d left for good. Hell, we’d even taken away the half empty bottle of coke he’d left.

Next thing Chef’s asking for a bunch of drinks, which of course have to be dealt with immediately. Never mind that it’s a busy day in general and there are quite a few customers waiting for drinks. To make things worse, it was at this very point that we ran out of pretty much everything. Cups. Tea pots. Milk jugs. I set up enough tea pots to go through the wash to cover the current orders - but they got diverted to the Palin order. And no more teapots came through for me. Customers were left stranded. A couple even pointed out, when informed that there was a wait on tea due to a lack of teapots, that two had just been sent over to Micheal Palin.

Ah well. It just got annoying, the lack of communication and general break down of efficiency.

Was still fun, knowing he was drinking my coffee.

We were at the public pools, and I was swimming along in the shallow end fine, and had a floatie board to help me stay up. I couldn’t swim at this stage, so I was forbidden to go out of my depth. Dad was watching over me, making sure I was alright. He asked if I’d be ok if he went to do a few laps. I’d have to make sure I stayed in the shallow end, and my brother would be around to keep an eye on me. I told him i was fine, I had my floatie board.

I developed this kind of game where I would swim with the floatie board, and then kind of push myself under it, propelling under the water, and coming up further down the pool. I was able to get what seemed to be quite a bit of speed up. I kept pushing myself further and further until -shit.

I couldn’t touch the bottom this time. My board was out of reach. And I panicked. I started floundering, splashing around, trying to reach the board. I succeeded only in pushing it further away.

Dad couldn’t hear me calling, of course. Apparently, neither could anyone else. My brother appeared on the edge of the pool. I asked him to give me the floatie. He wouldn’t. He didn’t realise what was going on at first. He did figure it out, but I can’t remember if he did give me the board or not. It’s a bit hazy. He went away. I couldn’t believe it. I was getting tired, and sinking more and more often below the water. I was scared.

Suddenly, I was lifted out of the water. Turns out Nic had gone to get Dad after all. Needless to say, Dad was mortified. He took my too the changing rooms. I was weak and in shock. I vomited up lots of water. It was a fucking close call.

To this day, I don’t like swimming. Wading is fine, but I really don’t like putting my head under. I find it difficult even to put my face under the water in the shower.

The other night Jordan suggested going to the pool every now and then, maybe weekly, to swim lengths. My initial reaction was a straight out ‘no.’ But then I thought about it - maybe it’s what I need. Push myself, get myself to swim again. Again, the idea seems ok, until I realise that the pool will probably go out of my depth. If I could stand anywhere along the length, I think I’d be fine. But I doubt that will be the case. I’ll have to push myself. But it’ll be good for me.

Or we could just play tennis. That might be easier. It’s exercise too, after all.

The rules of are:

• Link to the person that tagged you, and post the rules on your blog.
• Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself.
• Tag 7 random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.
• Let each person know that they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog

1) I have, until now, refused to do all kinds of “meme.” I just don’t like them. First of all, what does that word even mean? And how is it supposed to be pronounced? It’s all too confusing. Shannon emotionally blackmailed me into doing this one. Cheap shot.

2) As much as I rant and rave about good coffee, I cut my teeth at Starbucks. I fucking worked there. I remember my first day, as they were teaching me to make god-forsaken frappacinos. Or a couple of days in, when one girls tried to show me how to steam milk. She showed me pretty badly. It smelt horrible. But it still got used. Until I worked there, I hated coffee. Then I started drinking it, because it was free. They do offer plenty of mega-sweetened drinks for the uninitiated (And truth be told, the caramel macchiato was pretty damned nice, if made properly). But as I got to enjoy coffee, and began to realise how shit it was at starbucks. Not just the quality of the drinks being made, but the quailty of the actual coffee. It’s inispid and bitter, no matter how perfectly you extract a shot. It got to the point where on my breaks I would get coffee from the Mojo cafe next door.

3) Have you ever tried spaghetti bolognaise ice cream? It’s a crazy invention. Had it in Germany as I was travelling around Europe. Don’t worry, it’s not flavoured like spagbol, it just looks like it. They put vanilla ice cream through a spaghetti maker, top it with a jam or other sweet red sauce, and top it off with white chocolate shavings (for the parmesan cheese, of course). How does someone come up with this sort of thing? Was bloody good, but a little disconcerting that it was based on a pasta meal.

4) I had a bowl cut to the age of 16. Not that my hair was deliberately cut like that, it’s just how it grows. In fact, right now, as I write this, my hair is pretty much in a bowl again. It’s gotten long, and has no product in it. Must change that before I leave the house.

5) I sometimes dream of being a rock star. But then, don’t we all, really? There’s just something about that moment in a song where the guitarist rips into a mind-melting solo I can get lost in. Sometimes I let my imagination take over, and I’m transported to an alternate world where it’s me up there playing… fun times. Till I come back to earth and suddenly feel very clumsy around my guitar.

6) The closest I got to Rockstardom was at age 8. Oh yeah, true rockstar styles, I was a part of the support band for the gatekeepers of the Ray Charles concert at the Mission in 1994. Picture me, eight years old, dressed up in my black and whites, holding my tiny violin, playing with a group of 10 or so at the gates to the concert as people entered the Estate. No idea what we played. Probably wasnt overly good either - groups of kids that age playing violin is rarely a pleasant experience. But hey, it got me and mum free tickets to the concert. Dad had to buy another one. I don’t remember much about the actual concert, apart from the big piano on the stage and seeing Ray come on stage and wave. The rest of my memories are about running in the hills around the Estate and playing with those light sticks that people sell everywhere. Fun times.

7) I just wrote a massive one, then decided it was a little bit deep, and too good, to be part of this. So let’s go with something a little more light hearted. People who see me use a computer often say “Holy shit, you’re left handed, I never noticed!” I use the mouse with my left hand. The only reason they’d never noticed it because I write with my right hand, and do everything that would be expected of a right handed person with my right hand. I’m not one of those natural lefties that was forced to use the right hand. It just goes back to when we got our first computer. The tech who came and set it up told us that if we could learn to use our left hands for the mouse, it would eventually be much more comfortable and better for us, less cramped. This was at the time where arrow keys dominated. Now, for gaming anyways, everything is WASD, so his theory got the boot. But hey, I still use my left hand.

So, tagging time. I’m only going to do four.

Some Go Softly of, well, Some Go Softly

Bone from A Big Guy in a Big City

Bio from Of Horses and Hell

Mr President from Textual Relations

http://www.leafprobably.com

All in time for the fort building madness of tomorrow.

You will not.

You will be sorely dissapointed voir intimidated when a double short black (or, if you’re lucky, a long black) arrives in front on you.

If you want a cappucino, that’s fine. Just order it. By saying, oh, I don’t know… “Cappucino please” usually works.

Let’s work together to stop the confusion.