Some meme thingermajinger.

Because Eric over at Terminal Dysfunction has threatened me with eternal bad luck if I don't do this, I am going to do it. I'm pretty sure I already suffer from eternal bad luck, but no use in making it eternal even worse luck. So here goes....

........no English or Scottish pavillions though, so no Rowntrees Fruit Pastilles or Gums.

That is the fifth sentence from my 23rd post, which was entitled Heritage Days and if I had computer abilities I could link you right to it. But I don't. Heritage Days is a big festival here with over 50 countries represented but NOT England or Scotland who had a bit of a tiff with the H.D people. Therefore I suffered without my fruit pastilles and gums. But I got a few packages a week later when Taylor came home from England and some more a couple of weeks ago when Christine sent some from Scotland. They are all gone now. Shame. I could buy them at the British shop, but am too cheap to pay $1 a roll.

So what does that sentence tell you about me? Well, it tells you I love Rowntrees Fruit Gums and Pastilles. And that's really all it says. Read deeper if you must.

Here's the rules for the people I now have to tag.
Delve into your blog archive.
Find your 23rd post (or closest to).
Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.
Tag five people to do the same.

I'll tag...let's see...Frank over at The Land of Ireland, UI (who doesn't seem to visit these days, sigh), Emma at Welcome to Melancholy, Bliss Disclosed and 42 Year Old Loser. There we go then.

Foolish, foolish me

Sometimes (OK most of the time) I speak before I think. And I did that yesterday and again today and I think have really fucked things up. I said things that I don't think are forgivable. I am not sure how, or if I can, make amends. I wish I could erase the last two days and start all over again. I wish that I did not say things out of anger that I don't mean. I wish that saying sorry was acceptable. I wish alot of things, but I don't think wishing will be much help in this case.

Brad and Angelina....once again.

Posting a couple of lines about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie going to Galaxyland had a dozen people ending up at my blog. I don't see the fascination with the them, even though I realize this is the third time I have posted on them. Or the fourth. Oops, maybe I am unknowingly fascinated with them myself. Who knew? Although, let's give credit where credit is due, I didn't run through the mall looking for them like some people did. My friend saw them (and I'm not accusing her of chasing after them) and said he is way too skinny and she is beautiful. I hear they are renting a house in Devon so if you're one of those people using search engines I'd suggest adding that to your query. Maybe you'll get to see them going to Mac's or something. Exciting stuff.

Didn't I say so?

Well, I said JD would INXS Rockstar and I was right. He was fantastic last night and if INXS does do this world tour they are talking about I think I will go. But I wonder where they will play. I don't think they can sell out (or even come close to) a 17,000 seat stadium. And yet, I hardly think they will do a Glass Tiger and play Reds. I wonder. And what makes me think they will even play Edmonton. After all, it's hardly a mecca. But hopefully they will.


In totally unrelated news, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie took the kids to West Edmonton Mall today and spent the afternoon at Galaxyland. Apparently, the wee boy calls him Daddy.

School Politics

Tonight we had our first parent council meeting at my daughter's school. Everything was running smoothly until towards the end when the principal presented her 'Supplemental Educational Needs' list. This includes such items as gym equipment, 12 sets of drums for music, library books, classroom consumables, a rug! and bussing for field trips. The grand total was just over $48,000.

Tell me how this school would survive without parents doing fundraising. How does any school? I don't know what it is like where you are, but here we are in the richest province in Canada and the government won't provide enough money for the school to sit the children in proper desks. This government has a huge surplus and where is it going? Certainly not to our children.

When I was young, I don't remember my mother being involved in any fundraising, excluding the odd bake sale. Hardly anyone came to our door looking to sell chocolate covered almonds or cookie dough or the thousands of other things people are selling. Sometimes I am afraid to answer the door.

These are the fundraisers we will be doing this year- 10 hot lunches (raising anywhere from $300- $650 each), a school dance complete with raffles, cookie dough, compost and whatever else they decide to think up. It is not a casino year, and I am sure our principal wishes it was, since it made the school approximately $85,000 last year.

My friend attends a public school not to far away from my school and they had talked about revolting, literally refusing to do any more fundraising so that the government realizes parents will no longer cover their shortfall. The problem with that is that it is our children who will suffer now. It will be good for the children starting school in 5 or 6 years, but who wants to make their own kids miss out? And I think Klein and his friends know that. So he can continue screwing us over and over and over and we will continue to take it.

And the really sad thing for me is that now that Liam is in a different school I will have two sets of fundraising duties. Bugger.

Trivia Time

Rightio... I have a trivia question for you all (all 6 or 7 of you now)


Where is Grosse Ile and what is it's importance to the Irish?


Answer this without googling it, people. And believe me, I will know if you cheated!!!!


I may or may not have a prize for the first correct answer.

Talking About the Birds and the Bees

Last night, Liam and I were watching a program (it was child friendly) and it said something about the "abstinence club." I had hoped that the reference went right over Liam's head, as I was not up for a talk on sexuality yesterday, but immediately he piped up with "What's abstinence?

Very foolishly, because the show was about teenagers, I said "It is what teenagers who choose not to have sex are practising." I was about to correct myself and say people instead of teenagers and I thought that would be that when I heard the dreaded question...

"How old were you when you first had sex?"

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What do you say to that? I think that I have always been very open with my children, they have always known that to have a baby a man and a woman have sex. They know it's okay if they are gay or straight, although Liam says it would be gross for men to kiss each other (but come on, he's 9, he thinks girls and guys kissing is ucky,)they also have been told that can ask me anything. But for some reason I was not expecting that one. So what did I do? I hemmed and hawed and avoided the question. I answered a question that he didn't even ask. I told him how old I was when I had my first proper boyfriend.

I look at the teenagers in my neighbourhood and I think that not one of them is old enough or mature enough to be having sex. I am sure they think they are and are acting on it. And I also know now that I was not mature enough all those many years ago. I don't think that I would go back and change anything, after all my mistakes have made me somewhat smarter, but I would hope that my children don't rush into sexual relationships. Because, frankly, I don't think their mother could handle it.

Oh Villa...how could you?

I just read the previous post and it makes no sense at all. I'll put it down to the fact that I was eagerly awaiting the Villa game and only had a minute or two to write.

There are times when I wish we had never left Birmingham and today was one of them. I would have loved to have been at the game today, even if they did let a win go in the end. There were lots of empty seats, which doesn't say much for Aston Villa fans.

Shame that it was Robbie Keane who scored the equalizer. Against any other team it would have been alright, but not against this one. Oh well. It was a great game anyway, very entertaining. I think that sometimes Aston Villa can be accused of being somewhat boring, but not today.

Chelsea 2 Charlton 0

Chelsea is my number 2 most hated team (second only to Man U) so this result was a sadly disappointing for me. I would love to see Chelsea lose a game and I am sure it will happen eventually. I hate the money some teams have to throw around, it's just like the Rangers in hockey prior to the salary cap. I LOVE the salary cap, in fact I might even watch hockey this year. I'm off topic here...I do like Chelsea's Joe Cole just because when I was in Ireland I watched some sports quiz show that he was on and he was so very stupid that it was rather endearing. I don't think he played for Chelsea then, I have West Ham in my head. Must check that one out. Will do a search now....I knew it was West Ham. Joe Cole has his own site, and it is slightly tacky.
Time for the Aston Villa game. I hope they win this one.

I Adore Quizzes

I came across this quiz on http://42yearoldloserorami.blogspot.com and thought I'd give it a go. I was a bit stumped by question 16 Abortion should be a)completely legal and available or b) restricted, discouraged or illegal. While I personally could never have an abortion I respect a woman's right to do so, but I don't think it should be used as a method of birth control. And I have met people eho have used it as such. This quiz is American and therefore some questions are moot for me as a Canadian. We don't have a policy of No Child Left Behind for schools, not as far as I know anyway, nor do we have Affirmative Action, not by title at least. And every Canadian is entitled to medical care, you'll just get bills that no one can force you to pay.
Your Political Profile
Overall: 15% Conservative, 85% Liberal
Social Issues: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal
Personal Responsibility: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal
Fiscal Issues: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal
Ethics: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal
Defense and Crime: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal

This quiz is from http://www.blogthings.com/liborconquiz/. Do it, damn it.

I Love Michael Moore

Friday, September 2nd, 2005Vacation is Over... an open letter from Michael Moore to George W. Bush
Friday, September 2nd, 2005
Dear Mr. Bush:
Any idea where all our helicopters are? It's Day 5 of Hurricane Katrina and thousands remain stranded in New Orleans and need to be airlifted. Where on earth could you have misplaced all our military choppers? Do you need help finding them? I once lost my car in a Sears parking lot. Man, was that a drag.
Also, any idea where all our national guard soldiers are? We could really use them right now for the type of thing they signed up to do like helping with national disasters. How come they weren't there to begin with?
Last Thursday I was in south Florida and sat outside while the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed over my head. It was only a Category 1 then but it was pretty nasty. Eleven people died and, as of today, there were still homes without power. That night the weatherman said this storm was on its way to New Orleans. That was Thursday! Did anybody tell you? I know you didn't want to interrupt your vacation and I know how you don't like to get bad news. Plus, you had fundraisers to go to and mothers of dead soldiers to ignore and smear. You sure showed her!
I especially like how, the day after the hurricane, instead of flying to Louisiana, you flew to San Diego to party with your business peeps. Don't let people criticize you for this -- after all, the hurricane was over and what the heck could you do, put your finger in the dike?
And don't listen to those who, in the coming days, will reveal how you specifically reduced the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for New Orleans this summer for the third year in a row. You just tell them that even if you hadn't cut the money to fix those levees, there weren't going to be any Army engineers to fix them anyway because you had a much more important construction job for them -- BUILDING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ!
On Day 3, when you finally left your vacation home, I have to say I was moved by how you had your Air Force One pilot descend from the clouds as you flew over New Orleans so you could catch a quick look of the disaster. Hey, I know you couldn't stop and grab a bullhorn and stand on some rubble and act like a commander in chief. Been there done that.
There will be those who will try to politicize this tragedy and try to use it against you. Just have your people keep pointing that out. Respond to nothing. Even those pesky scientists who predicted this would happen because the water in the Gulf of Mexico is getting hotter and hotter making a storm like this inevitable. Ignore them and all their global warming Chicken Littles. There is nothing unusual about a hurricane that was so wide it would be like having one F-4 tornado that stretched from New York to Cleveland.
No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It's not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh! Race has nothing -- NOTHING -- to do with this!
You hang in there, Mr. Bush. Just try to find a few of our Army helicopters and send them there. Pretend the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are near Tikrit.
Yours,
Michael MooreMMFlint@aol.comwww.MichaelMoore.com
P.S. That annoying mother, Cindy Sheehan, is no longer at your ranch. She and dozens of other relatives of the Iraqi War dead are now driving across the country, stopping in many cities along the way. Maybe you can catch up with them before they get to DC on September 21st.

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.