dinner for one

happily scanning the net for the delicous establishments that can be found in these here parts i made bookings at several of them for 8 of us to go and celebrate on saturday night... several because i couldn't decide, didn't know what people wanted and was sure that for saturday night places would book out quickly... finally i settled on one and cancelled all the others... then,

B unfortunately has to write a supp for an exam she has yet to pass, so she is going to plough all of her strength and attention into getting through this paper so that it will be fourth time lucky... this of course means that M, her partner, will also not be making it.
C and her other half are going to be running, swimming and cycling through the weekend and will be too tired to make it all the way in to town to eat...
P just sms'd, this being after a zillion days of planning and in reply to my last sms to confirm numbers, that J is ill (whatever) and so sorry but has promised that the next one will be on him in an attempt to save grace...
A certain someone (CS) has only just let me know that he is going to be a little longer than he expected and so has decided to dine where he is.
S is at THE social event of the year so i didn't feel like eating into his time with a dinner of obligation...
which leaves T as the only one who was genuinely looking forward to comming...

after all of this i have decided to cancel due to a lack of interest.

al gore was wrong?

congratulations to most of the commentators. you have demonstrated an inept lack of attention to detail and thorough misunderstanding of the inner workings of the global warming theory. it is not about looking forward to what is going to happen through a pseudo glance into a scientists crystal ball but rather a look backwards to the changes that are evidenced in the snow, chartered weather patterns and studies of ice shelves etc.

much like those in the middle ages who laughed at those who said 'i am jumping in this boat made of wood and will not fall of the end of the earth' (in fact these voyagers would stumble upon continents such as america), or those who looked into the sky and said 'look! there are patterns up there in the stars' etc so too are you illustrating your ignorance with comments such as global warming is a conspiracy, lets swim down madison avenue it can't be that bad, whats the big deal, humans are too dumb to figure out the problem...

you may wish too note that this year (though not in isolation as the pattern has been chartered for a while now) europe has experienced the hottest winter ever, snow has yet to fall in parts of the world that should by now be covered in the fluffy white powder, a big chunk of the ice shelf in greenland broke off, the southern hemisphere is reporting rain showers in the hight of their usually flawless sun filled summer days and the list goes on...

you stay in your little enclave of ignorance and one day when your children ask what it is like to go outside you can sit them down and give them a slide show. al gore was wrong, wrong to think that evidence, science or facts would be able to enter the debating arena of a country fueled by bushisms*.

* the ideologies of the bush administration

wanna work for RS?

this could be a dream job for someone who wants to get under the skin and between the syllable's of todays newest big thing or the up and coming making of some production team...

writing for rolling stone may be akin to a coke, crack induced frenzy of i can write the sharpest q&a this side of nashville but only those resident in the us will get the honor of battling it out noun and verb lick at a time.

thats contriest (this being a made up word but what the hell everyone's doing it) which is psuedo based on logic, most stars live in the us etc... anyhow i suggest opening it up a little and letting the rest of the web-sphere take a crack at it and then fly your new happening journo off to the big apple and let him or her make a fresh start at something they love to talk about...

just an idea, maybe next time...

and then it was gone

i feel a little like a loan wolf in the web wilderness as i blog about a tradgedy that struck yesterday. i was certain that some more intuitive user would have metioned/blogged about the absence of my only source of knowledge but alas it was me and me alone that seemed to be feeling the pangs of life without google...

i phoned CS yesterday mid crisis 'please google ....(name of person i was searching for)'
CS: google is down
me: no thats impossible check again
CS: yip it's down
me: how the hell am i supposed to find out who or where anything is? try .....(random search engine)
CS: nope nothing... yip again nothing, no help, sorry, happy hunting, use the phone book...

the phone book? if you don't have a web presence i cant find you. you are as good as invisible. what google sorts out is me not needing to use the phone book and speak to a zillion others to find the one that i am looking for. with google down it meant that any site i visited that needed to search something 'smartly' used google as their search engine and again i was alienated from my searching pleasure.

altavista or who ever else is just too hard to remember, especially when they aren't in your history and you dont have the pleasure of half typing scroll down and find yourself more than one mouse click away from where you need to get to. is it alta or alte or why is google not working?

with google absent from my life, so was gmail, even hotmail for no apparent reason escaped my contact...

i am a tad fragile today as google may have gotten to big, have too much control, be a little too involved in my net use for comfort. if they got bored or took off or continued to take bribes from the red dragon could this all not spiral out of control? they are everywhere gobbling everything that net users touch. this may be a little left over mass hysteria from a day without googling something, but that says it in a nut shell, i am hooked on their crack!

bikini body

this is like the search for the pot at the end of a rainbow, no matter how long you run after it, it always seems just out of reach. i am not sure whether i am a bum, legs, etc person or somehow obsessed with the whole damn package...

today i decided that i needed white bikini's legs and probably her bum, orange bikinis, hips , waist and maybe stomach, no wait i think stripped bikini wins in the stomach department, white bikini's shoulder blades and well get that much right and the rest should follow suit...

its obvious that this means that in addition to the weekly injections of chappies philosophy and rounds of 'you serve i may return' tennis need to be turned into regimes, strike that i am put off already, so it will be great sprints up many stairs, many lunges for fun, squats for breakfast, lots of running, some crunches for good measure and just for shits and giggles sit/push/pull ups for infinity...

tis not enough to be skinny and intelligent you need also to compete for buns, abs, thighs to suit the perfect bikini...

yogi mishmash

today at the ungodly hour of around 8.30 a certain someone's brother sparked a rude awakening to remind me that i wanted to attend the saturday yoga class... 9am sat classes are ridiculous, but that is another post entirely...

arrived at the studio to find the 'i can bend anyway till way in my 80's' teacher not present and some woman filling in the gap... already not a good sign, not that i have anything against woman teaching yoga, again another posts topic... moving onwards to the gripe of the day...

what is it with yoga teachers and chappies bubble wrapping philosophy's? i attend classes so that i can bend, twist and elongate my body into the lean mean fighting machine physique that it deserves to hold, not to get some smish smash one with your self dripple dr phil worship. if i wanted to be dr philed i would tune in for the intravenous oprah fuled philosophy not pay top dollar for the teeth nashing...

i started relaxed got to hear how 'yoga was my friend' according to this writter, how 'my body mind are tuned' blah blah why am i no longer relaxed, 'relax let the practice sink in' um we haven't started yet... 'open yourself to the experience' get off the hippie crack this is a sleek zen like studio catering to my urban chic needs...

leave philosophy to those who while away the day deliberating about the inner likeness of being or the ability to de-construct the nut.

theyr'e watching you

without much surprise it appears that various dubious governments around the world are cracking down on what their citizens and others have to say about them. it doesn't set off many alarm bells to those freely scribbling away about how crap george bush is or how pissed they are at the free and fair elections that took place within their democracy... but for those in a state where things run with an under current, rules don't make sense and those that question them get thrown into the dark wholes, forgotten, only to be heard off in whispering halls, amnesty has decided that action needs to be taken and are trying to rally support from all those free to talk about such taboo topics...
click here , sign the petition, create a link to your site and help mobilise free speech

crap choices

if forced to chose do you pick (a) to live in a country that has chaos but freedom, or (b) a country that is ruled by fascism or maybe extremism? its a tough one to call. another version is would you (a) live where you know that your fundamental rights are protected / respected / exist but run the risk of being hijacked / shot at / killed, or (b) live in a country that is ruled by religious fundamentalism with a belief system that is not your own and fundamental rights don't really exist but you can sleep safely at night provided you obey the law?

i think that a lot of people may chose option (b) though instinctively they may want to chose option (a). (a) may be better as you as an individual are recognised but the possibility of death is a probability and hence this sways you to chose option (b), give up your freedom to walk around as you please, forced to dress a certain way, equality as you understand it goes out the window but at least you aren't a dead man...

i tried to reason this out earlier and was faced with 2 more choices... is life better in a country that oppressed the majority of its people (a) when the day comes that everyone is free but the crime rate is up, death toll ridiculous, and hijacking common practice or (b) the majority remains oppressed but you can sleep better at night? now i would definitely chose (a) because i cant tolerate, let alone live in or condone a place of oppression. so why was the line so blurred earlier? they are all really asking the same question!

as the cry for help continues unanswered by the un i have to wonder whether life for those in war torn countries is better with a rule by religious hijackers even if anyone is sleeping better tonight?

please call

in the new age of technology getting an upgrade appears to be a big deal. there are a range of different manufacturers of the latest gidget that is the object of your desire and it takes a little more than picking it up, looking at it, deciding its pretty to make you want to go home with it.

mobiles are no longer the means to get in touch with, they are the tools to capture that drive by sniper, a way to mail that uber importante message to no-one about nothing, the way to re-live your memory of a vacation or moment in a few seconds play back and without the correct amount of pixels, memory, storage space, battery life or talk time these simple little conveniences will be lost.

after chasing after the slim and sleek that flicks and flacks a certain someone has decided that
black is the new black, sliding is better than flicking and the more pixels the closer you are at being the chosen one!

bet you missed this

yesterday you would have been given 500/1 odds at the book makers that scientists would not be able to come up with a way to read and understand waves in the space time continuum. today they are only willing to give you 10/1 odds that the scientist will crack the black whole mystery.

it appears that an interest from punters has made the odds a little less attractive to those backing against science. the test tube calculators seem to be making their way onwards to understand and be able to detect gravitational waves. this means that objects, very massive objects, which move through the universe making ripples in the space-time continuum may now be able to be detected...

maybe by 2010 we can been me up scotty?

2007

the last days of 2006 flew by as quickly as the year did. trying to decide what, where and how we were spending these last days happened in as quick a blur. had anyone stopped to give anything a thought the whole ending and beginning would have been dramatically different.

the decision taken was to depart in the direction of a 4 night 5 day party to concretely stamp out 2006 and march in 2007. sounded like heaps of fun and the best of all options on offer. everything snappily organised, a final check of the weather not going pear shaped and if it does that it will rectify itself to its natural course swiftly had been taken care of.

then the blinkers came on. we were being dazed and confused by the speed that the rotation of the earths axis was taking and scrambled like little blind mice in the rain questioning why we hadn't left earlier? not for a milli-second did anyone stop and say 'should we leave?'. 'will everyone please stop and take note of the downpour we are rushing out into?'. nope! we rushed straight out into it wondering why we hadn't headed out into misty dirty skies sooner?

erecting our semi permanent homes for the next 5 days was accomplished in semi-hysterics as we realised what we had done. during the spitting of the gods we moved everything from our cars into these structures and there we waited.

most of the party was enjoyed in the wet and cold. strangely not many got the brief that winter would come in the midst of summer and nightfall would bring with it below 10 degree temperatures. while this dampened the first night with us contemplating throwing it all in for warmer places the next day fooled you with its teasing of sunshine. the sun never around for long enough to heat you but lingering just enough to keep you comfortable. the result was that come the eve of the 31st the only remaining option was lots of wine, warm coats and non-stop stomping until 2007.

happy 2007!

fa la la la la

tis the season to be jolly and all that... christmas has come and gone in a blur. one minute i was traveling great lengths to find the perfect gift for everyone within my budget, in most cases massively missing the budget know how and then poof it was over, new years around the corner, slip into a different gear and presto it is 2007.... wow!

i lorve christmas, really, the whole festive dingle, santa, snow, lights, fir trees the whole trillion yards... i love shopping for gifts and jump in with heaps of anticipation. even choosing wrapping paper is important, labeling, maintaining these beauties were dropped off by the big guy from the north pole. most people approach the gift giving stage with what is usually reserved for root canal treatment... not me i jump into the mall, 6 hours later surface with nothing not even a clue of who will be getting what and the next day dive straight into the next shopping mecca. i can spend hours if the shops are empty blissfully contemplating which set of what i should get this one or that one. i start with a budget and then expand it and expand it and finally after all the searching i come up with what i think are the perfect gifts. when i look at something it must say the persons name to me otherwise i drop it and am off to the next shinny object a little like a minor bird...

however this year it seems others took a different stance. they waltzed into the nearest store, pulled off the nearest object, ran home, wrapped it and randomly placed name tags on to their make shift gifts... in past years i have maintained a reasonable amount of grace and dignity and fained amusement, surprise and glee when unwrapping a picture frame from what seems the corner store but not this year. this year i opened, smiled, thanked and ensured that when i left i knew exactly where all the junk came from so that i could promptly restore the crap to where from it came!

why bother with crap gifts is now my mantra. i am not going to be bothered that a certain uncle has chosen to over look who i am, where i am going or what it is that i do. sorry dear but slippers with kittens just isn't going to cut it where i am heading, thanks but no thanks. i spent hours laboring over whether cigars, cigar cutters, shooter games with tiddlywinks or something else would suffice... so back to the store with the beastly gifts so that i can wake up and look at all the wonderful things i have now chosen for myself.