The Monarchy

It's starting to grow on me. More later.

You British people and your snappy retorts....

So favorite "snap" of today...in response to my diatribe against Marmite, T* at work listened for awhile and came back with, "Well if we're gonna discuss the subject of sandwich fillings, what the heck is bologna?"

I guess you can say he told me.

But Marmite is still yucky. And I hate to break it to y'all, but so is Pimms.

Btw, T* is also the one who pointed out that American football is undeserving of the label because it doesn't actually involve the feet. Curses.

Hey! You know what's kinda fun?

Going to the airport when you don't have to travel. Went to meet 'Davaria' during their layover at LHR today. Heathrow is a much more fun place when it's not your cosmetics you're surrendering or you who has to wait in the security line. Or you who actually has to get on a plane. So if you can't find me this Saturday night, there's a better than even chance I'll be chillin' at Stanstead.



Hey look! It's NOT ME flying!

Words I've just plain refused to adopt...and why

While I've gladly incorporated 'chips', 'lift', 'bin', 'rubbish', 'car park' and various other British phrases into my vocabulary there are some I just cannot abide by:


'mobile' for cell phone (because it just sounds silly with my accent)
'kitchen roll' for paper towel (because you use it in places other than the kitchen)
'buttons' for remote control (because that's just wrong)
'sweets' for candy (because I just can't get into the habit and because the song 'I want Sweets' just wouldn't be the same...)
'cinema' for movies (cuz it's really hard to master the phrase, 'I'm going to the cinema to see the new Queen Latifah film...'
'aluminium' for aluminum (why would i put more syllables into a word...the same goes for 'disorientated' instead of disoriented...yes you could say it that way, but why??)
'hoover' for vacuum cleaner (just because)
'zed' (did nobody see pulp fiction?)

More to follow I'm sure.

All this for just £5.40

Yesterday I had five reminders of Why I Hate 'the Tube.'
1. At 9:46 AM I heard my least favorite six words: 'Severe delays on the Northern Line.'
2. The armpit(s) of the man in front of me when I finally got on said Northern Line, which was 18 different types of smelly.
3. My travelcard was somehow de-activated from the get-go, so at each station I had to ask a man in an orange vest to let me through.
4. At the end of the work day, as I was riding the escalator down to the depths of Waterloo station, it abruptly broke down, sending people lurching forward and then back as they all braced themselves. OK, so that part was kind of funny.
5. One of the stations I was trying to get to was closed due to 'overcrowding'? Yeah figure that one out.

If liking We Are Scientists makes me a cheesehead...

then let me be guilty.

Answer: 19 October 2006

Question: What date did Whipps Cross Hospital give me as their next available opthamology appointment?

Not kidding. Gotta *love* the NHS.

From Portland with Love

As you can see, the pups were eager to let me know they hadn't forgotten...

my (first) birthday cupcake*

I know, it's a thing of beauty, courtesy of the Hummingbird Bakery in Notting Hill.

* which was quickly followed by my second birthday cupcake...

Sarcasm chasm

Having been told by a co-worker that my last post demonstrates a typical American lack of understanding regarding the British use of sarcasm, I hereby clarify: I FREAKING LOVED PRAGUE!
My apologies to my swarms of British fans...(see, I can do sarcasm).

Czech please.

OK so how enamoured was I with Prague.

My Most Exciting Purchase Today

My most exciting purchase today was a passport wallet. Why? Because in three days I'm meeting my MA and some of her peeps in Prague and then we're going to Vienna for a day. YAY! Tips on "what to do with 48 hours in Prague/ Vienna" welcome. :)

There must be a point....

There must be a point at which it gets so hot it's actually legal to kill people.

So an American walks into a McDonald's...

Recently, on the way back from a conference, J* stopped at the McDonald's in the Cambridge Motor Services. (J* is an American who has lived in the UK for going on 20 years now.)
British people will be the first to tell you that they "know how to queue" (line up). However at the McD's, there were four registers open and one queue for all of them that was beginning to stretch out into the main shopping area, blocking other people from getting by the McD's.
So J* figured the logical thing to do was begin a new queue at one of the open tills, which would more evenly distribute the people at each of the four registers. But as he moved to do so, he was accosted by a tall, lanky British guy about 30 years old or so, who got right in his face and said, "Now how's that fair?! What if one queue moves faster than another one?!?" When J* tried to explain that the queue was getting unruly, the British guy, noting J*'s accent, yelled, "If you don't like it, get the **** back on the boat to America!"
Dialogue from here:
J*: "I've been here for 20 years, sir."
Angry British guy; "Hey we had rationing in THIS country, so we know how to queue, alright! Here, why don't you just cut in front of me, would that make you happy? Eh?!?"
J*: "No, that's ok, I'm not really in that much of a hurry."
Now, several responses could have been made to Angry British guy, aside from the obvious two fingers.
1. You're 30. You weren't even *around* during the WW2 rationing.
2. Well, apparently you missed the brain rations day.
3. You're telling ME to go back to America when you're in line to buy food in McDonald's?? Why don't YOU go to America if McD's is so important to you. There are tons of them there...Oh wait, the way we line up may bother you to no end so nevermind.
4. I've paid taxes and National Insurance here for 20 years, idiot, so if I go back to the US, that's less money the NHS will have to reverse your lobotomy.
5. Are you on crack? Seriously, are you?

I think the thing that bothers me MOST about this episode is that if I were ever to say the equivalent to someone who had immigrated to the US, i.e. told a Mexican gentleman to get back on the boat to where he came from, I would be lambasted and hung from the politically correct gallows...and rightly so. But here it's perfectly acceptable to treat Americans like space invaders. I'm not saying there aren't obnoxious Americans out there, but please. So Angry British guy, if you're out there, just shut up and eat your Big Mac.

Two fun things about yesterday.

1. GREAT haircut by Jose at Taylor Taylor.

2.

In Response....

R*s blog the other day reported: 'According to the July 10 New York Post, a professor from the University of Pennsylvania has been recruited to train other educators—in England—on how to teach "lessons in happiness." These lessons are for 11-year-olds in state schools and are meant to combat "a huge rise in depression."'

R* wonders what could be so wrong over here that 11-year-olds would need happy classes. To be honest, I'm not sure. I mean, yes, there's a tax on practically everything and the tube is hot and smelly and you can't find a Slurpee around here to save your life....on the other hand, the sun doesn't go down until 10 PM these days, there are free music conerts everywhere and Avenue Q finally go here, so yay.

Then again....


*That's* pretty depressing.

I don't even know you...

So I don't quite get why you'd call me 'love', 'hon' or 'darlin.'

I don't get it.

If they *can* make deoderant that doesn't leave white stuff on your shirt, then why don't they just make *all* deoderant that way? I mean, are there people out there who actually *prefer* to have white smudges on their clothes?

Well it was fun while it lasted.

And I want everyone to know how hard I worked to NOT put a "World Cup Runneth Over" post on after the England/ Portugal match. So there.

It makes for a somewhat more sensible cheer....

"Go England!"

(Yes now that America is at the sinkbed of the World Cup chart, it makes sense for me to throw my newfound football enthusiasm toward my adopted country's team and to pretend they've been my favorite....err, favourite all along.)