A great big complaint

I worked today. And not at my nice cushy job where I am only working for the clothing discount, not the crappy pay. This was at my real job, where I earn real money (well as real as it can be when you didn't bother to go to university, you stupid fool.) I also earned really serious pain today, as I literally walked almost nonstop from 6.45 am until I walked in the door at 4.20. Yes, it was a bloody long day and now I have to work tomorrow and Friday. I am feeling rather sorry for myself, as one tends to do quite often. It has been a long time since I have had to do so much walking. On a positive note, it should be rather easy to shed the last of the baby weight. One must always look for the pluses, when one is busy feeling sorry for one's self.

2 Canadians, 1 American and the freaky Australian

INXS Rockstar is almost over. Marty, quite fittingly, sang Radiohead's 'Creep' tonight. But of course, the best one was JD. And that's all I have to say about that.

Ach for fecks sakes!!!

Bloody, bloody, bloody Villa. Honestly, losing to West Ham??? What is wrong with that picture? It's a shame is what it is. But I still love them. The useless bastards.

A bit more Rockstar

Well, the sexy JD had the encore tonight and was in the bottom three so I got to watch him sing twice. Knowing that there was no way INXS would get rid off him, it was pleasurable to see him perform Mystify. God, he's lovely.

It was Jordis that was sent home. I question why Mig wasn't in the bottom three, I thought he was terrible last night.

It's down to the final four now- Suzie, JD, Marty and Mig (he has it as MiG, but I refuse to write that, it's like when Prince was called the sign thingamajinger. Ridiculous.) I think that the final two will be JD and Suzie. Marty, though an excellent singer, is not an INXS singer and frankly is just scary looking. And Mig...well, Mig is just Mig, dull and slightly odd. And extremely annoying.

Heigh ho heigh ho it's off to work I go

Only 4 more days until I return to work. Sad days, indeed. I have a new job. And my old one, as well as my other old one. I thought I had been fired from that one, but it was just a file mix up and I am free to book shifts as soon as I want. I'd rather not but I may be forced to work the odd night shift if I do not get enough shifts at the other two jobs. My ass wiping days may not be over, after all. Though I do actually enjoy the patients themselves, if not their bodily functions, so I suppose it will not be too bad. I have really loved being on mat leave, it is a shame to return to work and lose the small fortune I was earning just by staying at home with a baby and going shopping.

...for Canada is the best football team

Or not. And while the title certainly would not apply to the mens soccer team, the women usually seem to have at least a chance.

They played Germany in a friendly yesterday, and were up 2-0. Germany scored before the end of the first half. They scored again (well, it was actually an own goal) and then they scored again AND again. Then a Canadian got a red card and they were down to 10 for the last 10 minutes. Canada scored one more goal, but couldn't pull off a tie. Shame, for it was a great game.

Those German girls fall like Wayne Rooney. It was terrible. It was comparable to watching a Man U match. Shameful, really. And, no offense to any Germans who may come across this (none so far according to statcounter), but a few of those German girls are some harsh looking.

Soccer madness

I never ever win anything. So imagine my surprise when I received an email saying I had won a pair of tickets to the Canada v. Germany soccer game. I had been thinking I might take Liam, as he loves soccer, even if it is only women playing (that's from Liam, not me) but Taylor wanted to go as well. So I bought an extra pair of tickets and tomorrow we are off to Commonwealth to watch the game.

In other soccer news, Northern Ireland finally won a game!!! It's been a long four years.

A Bit of a Bastard

Tonight I watched a man on TV answer a question that was posed to him about the slow reaction of the American government in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. This is what he said- "On Tuesday, the levees broke, on Wednesday, we...ummmm...., on Thursday, we started to evacuate."

He looked as though he was hiding a smile, something he does quite often.

Kanye West said "George Bush doesn't like black people." I tend to agree with him. If New Orleans hadn't of been two thirds black, what would have happened? Why have a zero tolerance policy towards people who are taking food to feed their children?

It's all a bit strange I think.

Stolen from Rosie

GUESTWORDS: By E.L. Doctorow
The Unfeeling President
I fault this president for not knowing what death is. He does not suffer the death of our 21-year-olds who wanted to be what they could be. On the eve of D-Day in 1944 General Eisenhower prayed to God for the lives of the young soldiers he knew were going to die. He knew what death was. Even in a justifiable war, a war not of choice but of necessity, a war of survival, the cost was almost more than Eisenhower could bear.But this president does not know what death is. He hasn’t the mind for it. You see him joking with the press, peering under the table for the weapons of mass destruction he can’t seem to find, you see him at rallies strutting up to the stage in shirt sleeves to the roar of the carefully screened crowd, smiling and waving, triumphal, a he-man.
He does not mourn. He doesn’t understand why he should mourn. He is satisfied during the course of a speech written for him to look solemn for a moment and speak of the brave young Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.
But you study him, you look into his eyes and know he dissembles an emotion which he does not feel in the depths of his being because he has no capacity for it. He does not feel a personal responsibility for the 1,000 dead young men and women who wanted to be what they could be.
They come to his desk not as youngsters with mothers and fathers or wives and children who will suffer to the end of their days a terribly torn fabric of familial relationships and the inconsolable remembrance of aborted life . . . they come to his desk as a political liability, which is why the press is not permitted to photograph the arrival of their coffins from Iraq.
How then can he mourn? To mourn is to express regret and he regrets nothing. He does not regret that his reason for going to war was, as he knew, unsubstantiated by the facts. He does not regret that his bungled plan for the war’s aftermath has made of his mission-accomplished a disaster. He does not regret that, rather than controlling terrorism, his war in Iraq has licensed it. So he never mourns for the dead and crippled youngsters who have fought this war of his choice.
He wanted to go to war and he did. He had not the mind to perceive the costs of war, or to listen to those who knew those costs. He did not understand that you do not go to war when it is one of the options but when it is the only option; you go not because you want to but because you have to.
Yet this president knew it would be difficult for Americans not to cheer the overthrow of a foreign dictator. He knew that much. This president and his supporters would seem to have a mind for only one thing — to take power, to remain in power, and to use that power for the sake of themselves and their friends.
A war will do that as well as anything. You become a wartime leader. The country gets behind you. Dissent becomes inappropriate. And so he does not drop to his knees, he is not contrite, he does not sit in the church with the grieving parents and wives and children. He is the president who does not feel. He does not feel for the families of the dead, he does not feel for the 35 million of us who live in poverty, he does not feel for the 40 percent who cannot afford health insurance, he does not feel for the miners whose lungs are turning black or for the working people he has deprived of the chance to work overtime at time-and-a-half to pay their bills - it is amazing for how many people in this country this president does not feel.
But he will dissemble feeling. He will say in all sincerity he is relieving the wealthiest 1 percent of the population of their tax burden for the sake of the rest of us, and that he is polluting the air we breathe for the sake of our economy, and that he is decreasing the quality of air in coal mines to save the coal miners’ jobs, and that he is depriving workers of their time-and-a-half benefits for overtime because this is actually a way to honor them by raising them into the professional class.
And this litany of lies he will versify with reverences for God and the flag and democracy, when just what he and his party are doing to our democracy is choking the life out of it.
But there is one more terribly sad thing about all of this. I remember the millions of people here and around the world who marched against the war. It was extraordinary, that spontaneous aroused oversoul of alarm and protest that transcended national borders. Why did it happen? After all, this was not the only war anyone had ever seen coming. There are little wars all over he world most of the time.
But the cry of protest was the appalled understanding of millions of people that America was ceding its role as the last best hope of mankind. It was their perception that the classic archetype of democracy was morphing into a rogue nation. The greatest democratic republic in history was turning its back on the future, using its extraordinary power and standing not to advance the ideal of a concordance of civilizations but to endorse the kind of tribal combat that originated with the Neanderthals, a people, now extinct, who could imagine ensuring their survival by no other means than pre-emptive war.
The president we get is the country we get. With each president the nation is conformed spiritually. He is the artificer of our malleable national soul. He proposes not only the laws but the kinds of lawlessness that govern our lives and invoke our responses. The people he appoints are cast in his image. The trouble they get into and get us into, is his characteristic trouble.
Finally, the media amplify his character into our moral weather report. He becomes the face of our sky, the conditions that prevail. How can we sustain ourselves as the United States of America given the stupid and ineffective warmaking, the constitutionally insensitive lawgiving, and the monarchal economics of this president? He cannot mourn but is a figure of such moral vacancy as to make us mourn for ourselves.
written 9.9.04 for the east hampton star

Oh, How I Love September

Oh joy! The two oldest are back to school tomorrow. How do I explain my feelings on this momentous occassion? I don't think there are adequate words. I am thrilled beyond belief. Finally, there will be an end to all the fighting, to requests for sleepovers 6 times a week, to kids telling me they have nothing to do when the great outdoors is only a screen door away (or a messy bedroom is upstairs), to doors slamming and waking up Saoirse. Life will be peaceful for 7 hours a day. We are back to waking up at 7am everyday, to me yelling at Taylor that it is now 7.30, yelling that is now 7.45, yelling that is now 8 am that we will be leaving in 20 minutes, to me rushing to make lunches that I was to lazy to make the night before, yelling at Taylor that she can not possibly leave the house with that rats nest upon her head, finally getting out the door with seconds to spare. It will be Liam's first time on the school bus as he is off to a new school tomorrow. Unfortunately, he is the driver's first pick up so has to be out at 7.36, a full hour before school starts. Our Friday morning coffee meetings will be back on, so there will be wasted calories on bagels and cream cheese. Unless I have to work, as I am due back in 2 weeks. Ach, for fecks sakes, I hate September!!

Bye Bye Ty

It was bad news for me tonight as JD was in the bottom three on Rockstar INXS. It was Ty that INXS eventually got rid of. Ty said something about how he had been in the bottom three for the last 3 weeks and didn't deserve it and mentioned something about "his people." And maybe he was right. Debate from the beginning said that a black man would not be considered a "rockstar." I thought Ty had a fantastic voice, and I would have rather seen him as the lead singer of INXS than Mig, the freaky Australian.
Tim Farris said that he had been in the bottom three for too long so had to go. And yet, Suzie was in the bottom three every week until last week. So I think Ty was right to call this racism.

Rockstar INXS

I thought I would hate Rockstar INXS. I loved INXS as a teenager, they are the only international band I have seen more than once. Somehow it seemed slightly sinful for a dead man's band to replace him and, even worse, to use a reality show to do so.

But I love it. I have yet to miss an episode. However, there are things about it that really piss me off. For instance, they say they searched the world for the best singers. So eleven of them came from the States? Out of 15? Somehow that doesn't make sense. Four were from Canada. One was from Australia. That is hardly "the world." William is under the impression that only an Australian male should be a member of INXS, so automatically he would have eliminated half the contestants for being female and non-Australians and the rest for not being Australian. Sadly then, you end up with Mig. Who I can't stand.

My favourite is JD. He is every good girl's dream....the bad boy. He's cocky and sexy and he can sing. And the tattoos. I love them. There are 6 left, including 2 Canadians...JD and a girl called Suzie. And if he doesn't win then I would go for her, not because she's Canadian, but because she has a very powerful voice. I'll miss this show when it's over, because no matter who wins I don't see INXS having great success again. They are 15 years past their prime I think.

Made in Canada

There is a series of commercials here that talks about different Canadian inventions. Today I saw the basketball one and wondered what else was invented by Canadians. I turned to trusty old google to find out. There are way to many to mention, and some of them I did know about, such as the telephone, gingerale, zippers, IMAX and Trivial Pursuit. Did you know the lightbulb was actually invented by a Canadian? Henry Woodward sold the patent to Thomas Edison. Other Canadian inventions include the prosthetic hand, garbage bags, snowblowers, snowmobiles (well who else would have a 5 month need for those two?), automatic postal sorters, the abominizer (a Canadian may have invented it, but judging by our obesity numbers, we certainly don't all use it), the pacemaker, the television and walkie talkies. I was dismayed to see that my favourite Canadian invention, the shooter, did not make it on to this list.

On a final note to this rather dull post, when you say "That's the real McCoy" * you are talking about a Canadian. Elijah McCoy invented many things including the lawn sprinkler and the automatic macinery lubricator (no idea what it is, but it sounds slightly sexual.)

* I have never actually heard anyone say "That's the real McCoy."

69, positions and other things about sex

That title is purely so I can see how many hits it generates. So sorry people seeking stuff about sex, there's none of that here. Look for Fred and Wilma. Or, if you have to be looking up sex positions, buy a book called "The Joy of Solo Sex." Chances are that one would come in handier than a site on positions. Since, ya know, you're probably by yourself. Or not. Who knows really.

The Joys and Perils of Statcounter

So I finally installed something to track my oh so many visitors. I tried Sitemeter and Neocounter and for some reason could get neither to install into my blog. Statcounter worked though. It has very easy to follow directions for eejits such as myself.

I must admit I find it somewhat frightening to see the information that people computer able could discover about you. I hear that you can do an awful lot with just an ISP address.But I could be wrong. As I have stated many times I am a complete computer moron. And I only have Windows 98, whereas every single person who has been on my blog in the last 2 days has Windows XP. Sigh. Anyways, my sitemeter has me being from Calgary, which I am most definitely not. I love Calgary, but there is absolutely no way I could live there as every federal riding is Conserative and only 3 provincial ridings are Liberal. Plus my 3 most hated politicians live there- Ralph Klein, Jason Kenney and Stephen Harper. Scum, the lot of them.

A few people have linked to me through http://unitedirelander.blogspot.com, a couple of them came from the Seven Things post. Both American, one from Iowa and one from California. That one linked 3 times but never left a comment. Makes me wonder. There were a couple of links through search engines, one looking for "black friday", "edmonton" (from Newfoundland...have I ever said how much I love Newfoundland? I really do, but so many of them live on my block and a couple come from different communities and there's alot of infighting. It's a bit crazy.) The other, which made me laugh, was for "disco duck song." I suppose they were looking for the lyrics.

The majority of my visitors came from Ireland. There were a couple from the UK, but for someone reason a city doesn't come up with it. Odd that. I can't figure out how many are returning, as I think I screwed up somewhere, but I've had visitors from 4 different countries this weekend. Well, I'd say 3 since I'm pretty sure the UK ones were all from the north of Ireland. 3 and a province if we must be fussy. Either way, it's not a very high number.