Every time I visit I'm amazed at how well Ella can wrap me round her little finger.

I was tired and cranky. There were cute women in the pub and I was stuck indoors.
Ella woke up from her afternoon nap, climbed up onto my chair, gave me a big hug and said "I'm EVER so glad you're here uncle Tony" then curled up in my arms and went back to sleep.

Sure sure, make me feel guilty about wishing I was somewhere else.

It was time I had to go check into my hotel. I'd spent the day playing with the kids, and they were now tired so surely they'd not notice if instead of returning for more games of monsters/tea parties, I just stayed relaxing in the hotel bar.
I was almost at the door when a voice behind me said "I'd be heartbroken if you don't come back to play Tony"

damn you child!!!

A stomach bug had been sweeping the household. I'd managed to escape it and was less than 100 miles from home when Mikey phoned me with an update to say that the kids were still sick, and he and Jennie's father had been vomitting too.
I was feeling slightly smug about having got away without catching it when in the background I hear "Where's uncle Tony? *sob*sob*sob* I want him to make it better *cry*cry*cry*"
Like the soft muppet that I am, when Ella finally woke up I was there waiting for her having turned round and driven back before she would have realised I'd actually gone home.

After an afternoon of having her wanting to be kissed better after being sick but then coughing/sneazing in my face, my stomach has just started feeling a bit iffy, I've got a bit of a temperature and I keep coughing. Yup, guess I've caught the lurgy now too :(

At least Dylan isn't any trouble. As long as there's a book for him to read and Ella has a glass of juice that he can steal he's happy and doesn't let a care bother him.

Sometimes I really wonder about my movie tastes.
Sunshine the other night, last night was In Her Shoes... oh yes, chickflick central, and tonight... Hard Candy
That is one seriously messed up movie - and I loved it.
I'm kinda glad I'm hosting a CS guest tomorrow otherwise I dread to think what DVD I'd pick to watch next *g*

Talking about movies, our very own Steph was in a short movie recently.
For those of you who aren't Bronzers and haven't already heard about this, you can watch it over on the Virgin Media's Shorts Film site, and then when you've watched it, go vote for it too because the winner gets seen in proper cinemas and that could lead Steph into a Hollywood film career which means she'd get to rub shoulders with Keira, Scarlett and Natalie - and then she could introduce them to Rob, which would send them screaming and running into my arms *nods*

See the movie The Price Of Freedom
Join the Facebook Support Group

I was replying to a post in the lovely Woe's LJ earlier and I was busy munching on some goodies I bought from the food festival (candy hearts, Turkish delight etc)
Not paying too much attention, I shoved my hand into the bag with the chocolate coated raisins and dumped the entire handful into my open gob and started to chew

and then discovered that actually, it wasn't the raisins but rather the bag of coffee beans.

Current Music: "How To Save A Life" - The Fray

Grrrr, the icon in the system tray for Semagic LJ Posting client looks very similar to Apache Web Servers icon.
So similar in fact, that it's very easy to have shut down the webservers all evening thinking you've simply logged out of LiveJournal.


Have finally given into my curiosity. I'd heard that Sunshine was one of the worst movies ever, but I refused to believe that any movie could be as bad as they implied.

It was.

In fact, maybe a bit worse than that

It's ok, because my brain has had the nasty movie washed away by the hugs given by unicorns dancing on rainbows. And where did these unicorns come from you ask? From watching this video.
It's from the Where The Hell Is Matt? website.
This video just makes me feel really happy. It's a simple concept, a man dancing badly in public but it's BRILLIANT
Almost as brilliant as We're From Barcelona.
Note that I said almost. I'm not crazy, NOTHING comes close to WFB

Anyway, Matt has nothing better to do than dance in lots of different countries and have it filmed. I think my favourite is at 2:35 with the Indian women, or 1:55 in the DMZ, no definitely with the Indian girls, or maybe 2:10 with the tribe from Papua New Guinea or... no, am sure it's the Indian girls, yup that's the best bit.
Doesn't it just inspire you to make the most of your life? To get out and live a little? To do something amazing?
Well, enough of all that, I'm off to play World Of Warcraft.

Current Music: "Love Song" - Sara Bareilles

A long time ago, in a country far far away my flight home was delayed so I did what everyone does, and hit the airport bar.

After a pint or two I got chatting to this crazy old Chinese guy in the corner. Couldn't really understand what he was saying, but at least it was someone to share a drink with. When my plane was finally ready for boarding, I did what we all do in these situations and said "Thanks for the company, and any time you're in England feel free to look me up"

Years pass, and the memories fade, until one day my phone rings. Yup, that crazy old man had decided that he would visit England.
No plans, no accommodation, no anything. Just the knowledge that his good friend Tony had promised to look after him!!!!!!! and so he used the planes onboard airphone to call me to say he would be landing in just over an hour.

When I met him at the airport (well, I couldn't not pick him up could I) he was clutching a small rucksack in one hand, and a few bits of paper in the other. One was a computer printout - the results of a Google search in which he had tracked me down.
The other screwed up bits of paper were clippings from magazines - Edinburgh Castle, Portsmouth Navy Yard, Tower Bridge and York Minster Cathedral.

One of the handy things with CouchSurfing is I've now got a fair selection of tourist guides and most of the national travel centres bookmarked, so after taking him back to mine to freshen up and grab a bite to eat, we then hit the Internet and managed to come up with a half decent itinerary for him, and then the next morning I booked a nice little round Britain tour, got some CS'ers to host him in the bigger cities and reserved a couple of B&B's for the other nights and then I took him to the coach station and sent him on his way for his first stop... Stratford Upon Avon.

Around lunchtime I got a call from Moor Street Train station to say a small bag that had been left on a bench had been handed in containing hand drawn maps, bus tickets and hotel reservations. Luckily my phone number was scrawled on one of the maps so I collected everything and dashed over to the Coach Station entrance and waited for him to try and catch his connecting bus that would take him overnight to Edinburgh.

This morning he phoned me to say he had arrived safe, checked into his room and was no about to go off exploring.

He said that he was worried that now he's retired his health will rapidly start to fail and so he wants to make the most of life while he can. I'm not sure if I think he's crazy, or utterly amazing but for someone in his mid 60's to just pack a bag and go is pretty damn impressive!

Current Mood: In Awe
Current Music: "We'll Live And Die In These Towns" - The Enemy

I really need to update this thing more frequently, so where are we...

I've lost a green pebble :(
Many moons ago Catherine gave me two little gem stone pebbles, one blue and one green. I don't necessarily believe in the power of these stones myself, but she did, certainly enough to give them to me and that was good enough for me and so I've had them with me every single day since.
During the storms the other day I kicked off my jeans and put on proper outdoor clothing and I guess it must have fallen out.
It was quite strange, the moment I put my jeans back on I knew straight away that one was missing, and now it just doesn't feel right... how odd.

Had a great little get away mid week. With the lovely weather I thought it'd be good to just get away for a day or two and so I packed the car with the camping and canoeing gear and even dragged Neal and Matthew along. We only went half an hour away to Kingsbury Water Park, but for a quick midweek break it was perfect, The campsite is away from it all so it's lovely and peaceful and being a water park there is obviously plenty of water for the kayak and canoe. There are about 15 lakes, each reserved for different activities from powerboat racing to fishing to model boats. There's also plenty for the kids to do.

The week before I was off on a Sharepoint MOSS training course. There were a few "interesting" moments and I must remember to do a friends-only post about them. Two highlights in an otherwise horrid week though were dinner with Andrea and drinks with Pooka, Giles, Bohemiangel and Naomi

After an amusing time at the pub where people would come up and discuss this historical impact of Cholera outbreaks Andrea took me on a guided tour of the alleyways of Soho and then we went for dinner at a Swiss restaurant. The next morning I was stopped by the local builders who had seen us out drinking and asked where we'd gone out. I explained we'd gone to a restaurant and had a cheese fondue. "fondue? ewwwww you dirrrty bastard" was the builders response before turning his back and walking off.
I got to the office and the security guard asked where I'd gone last night (being nosey as to the reasons why I'd changed into a shirt before leaving the office). Again I got the "You sick little fuck. Did a fondue with a classy bit like that." comment when I explained where we'd gone. Either there aren't many cheese lovers in London, or "sharing a fondue with a friend" has a slightly different meaning down south.

Oh, and to quickly finish off as I've a great little story to tell about a guest on Monday night, I shall leave you with this little video clip

I'm currently sitting here with the split stagetimes being beamed live from Turkey for the last day of the WRC round. Rather surprisingly, I'm sitting here cheering on Loeb and Elena in a Citreon and hoping they can overhaul the Ford One/Two.
Have I lost my mind? The blue oval were my childhood heroes - with a brief gap while Ove (who sadly was killed this week in a rally accident) built up TTE - so why this current change?
Tactics
Yes, in the past I've cheered when them sneaky navigators bent the rules but that was when a rally lasted 5 days and covered thousands of miles.
In todays sprint races there just isn't the distance to make up the time loss with these stupid rules. I'm not angry with Ford for using every available option, but I'm disapointed that they were so smug about it

There's been quite a few people that have emailed me wondering what options they needed to click to get the "MyFamily" screen in my previous post.
Sorry, it's fake. I was bored so I photoshopped it. There's no "big pants" setting and there's no way to replace a cat with some tumbleweed.

My original idea was to draw me along side Keira Knightley but even a stick drawing has more curves than Keira so it didn't look very realistic :( and to be honest, the tumbleweed was more accurate *sob*lonely*

Well, as everyone else is doing it.


Create your own family sticker graphic at pYzam.com

For some reason, mine hasn't come out the same as most peoples...

Current Mood: calm
Current Music: "Hotel Song" - Regina Spektor

This is soooo fooked up it's not even funny... Teenager faces prosecution for calling Scientology 'cult'

*shakes head*