Members' News

Why the kettle?
WHY the kettle?
Why the KETTLE?!

For tea of course...and you can't make cup ramen (noodles) without hot water.
When I first moved here, I came to an EMPTY apartment...as in not even a lightbulb or light fitting.
For the first 6 weeks i lived on cup ramen, miso soup and tea...then I got my toaster...and a rice cooker....a gas burner....and so on.
It looks like back to the good* old days for me.

I'm not keeping it indefinitely...just until the day before i leave. It's not one of those high tech ones that wake you up and sing to you when they're done.
That's my rice cooker.

*starvation

Well, yesterday evening we finally plugged in the Wii Fit thingy we bought on a whim in Galway. Well, I must say that although there are some annoying bits, it's actually quite good and I think we will have some fun with it... It didn't even laugh, or cry, or make any rude comments when I got on it, which was very reassuring.:bunny:

Hahaha I love my WiiFit, snarky comments and all.
I think it's more of a motivator, because when I lose all the weight I want, I can swear at it and say thinks like 'sit on that, Mr. 'what attributed to your weight gain?' I reached my goal so nyer!' If it was nice to me, it wouldn't make me angry enough to show it what I can do...XD I hate how my Mii gets all chubby, but to start with the made it skinnier do ther's more of an effect. My tall underweight friend gets to watch hers kind of wilt.

Finally some peace and quiet to myself! The little one's fine, the dog's fine, 'tis OH that's being a pain - 'what are you doing; do you need a hand (he'll clap if I say yes); do you want...' Seems I cannot get 5 - 10 minutes to myself! Mini rant over!

Hello all!

Well Baby R is now settled after her morning feed. Lucky bugger that I am, she now seems to sleep for between 7 to 9 hours after her last feed :smile: - long may it last. Now I just need to get myself into a routine :lol:.

Amazingly I have managed to read a whole book, start to finish, instead of a page here and a page there. Ok I will admit its not a normal book, though it is ook approved. YES I managed to read a Pterry discworld book... can you guess which one?

Yup, it's Where's My Cow?! My baby's first book! (sniff). I know she's a bit young, but just think she can proudly say when a lot older, and an avid fan of Pterry, that her first book was Where's My Cow?

Well I'm off back to bed for an extra hour, bit early to start hoovering!

Rewr

:redface:
Afterwords? Ashamed I am... :smile:

Hey Nice to hear from you Rewr (and Baby R.).

R.

Welcome back, Rewr :smile:, and that reminds me, I gotta get "Where's My Cow?"! (And maybe a few Paul Kidby books, so the kid can make up his own stories about the pictures)

Todays is March 9th and I'm due April 9th... The one-month countdown has begun!!!

Wow! Mowgli!
That's soon!
It seriously feels (to me*) like you've only been pregnant for a few months.

*doubtless your view on the matter is somewhat different

Take care, and how exciting!
xxx

PhD is chugging along; I only feel like I am getting thesis data now that I am in my third year but that is not a problem since I don't think getting a extension on my scholarship will be a problem. I'm on a good thing here and intend to ride it as long as possible given the current economic issues.

I am thinking about a career change to a highschool teacher. 5K less but half the hours compared to a researcher, better job security and a lot less stress. I am thinking that I will do a postdoc to pay the bills and do a masters of education part time while my girlfriend does a masters of pharmacy.

I also know far to much about video encoding now, I have become a AV geek over the last few months and am well into the process of converting my DVD collection into a iPod friendly format. I'm the process of considering my options for a media center; I may make a project thread if people are interested.

Mooching instead of packing...

6 days to departure and still no ticket has been issued.
Am I the only one who thinks this is a problem?

Have to translate my farewell speech into Japanese...maybe I should use one of those online translation thingos...see what the reaction is?

I am taking all of you with me, in my heart ---> I am tazing all of you with meat, causes of my heartburn...

In this order:

I would like to thank the Hammer Fairy for giving me back my hammer 3 weeks after I needed it.

I would like to send a notice out to the Screwdriver Fairy that if she doesn’t give me back my damned screwdrivers – and I mean all of them! – there will be a reckonin’.

The Fuse in the Plug Fairy can kiss my a** for messing with the one in my fan heater. I swear, she’s working with the Screwdriver Fairy to mess with my head.

The Diabetes Fairy can take a hike for making me crash today after lunch and scaring the pants off of me and the woman sitting next to me. Thanks a bunch for making me go faint.

The Lost Fairy needs a good kicking for making me even contemplate watching Lost again.

A brand new and expensive batch of makeup bit the dust because I dropped it on tiles this morning (I only bought it yesterday)

Twelve stories I've been working on vanished from my memory stick before I had a chance to back them up.

And I think I've just broken my Sky remote. Crap.

Now...will I end up electrocuting myself when I take a shower this evening...?

Hey, there's half a naggin of Southern Comfort in my food press - they can help themselves to that if they'd just stop stealing things!:smile:

Better day today though. Things actually went right for a change. Still have no heating though. And my screwdrivers are still AWOL

Did you swallow them? I've heard that kind of things going around...

Gypsy has left Japan!
Lots of emotions going on, but mostly just happy...
Currently in Thailand with my beautiful beau - yay!
Home to Perth in 12 days!
xxx

Adam is home from his latest journey, so I will be missing Cat tomorrow. I'm very happy just now. My friend and fellow KoL-er james is coming back from Korea in a few days too, it will be nice when he gets a stateside cell phone so we can actually have a conversation again. Skype isn't the same.

Brother #2 has officially moved to Chile. I'll miss the tax evading hobbit.:sad:

On the plus side, though, I've got a more exotic location than London to visit for my holidays!

The theater director is frustrating me a little. I am giving up three hours of my day during rehearsals to run the show (this is after working between 8 and 11 hours). I was the first one completely off book. As the narrator, I have five monologues spread throughout the show. Instead of taking out a complete rehearsal and working with just the two kids that are causing the breakdown in rehearsals, we all have to sit there and do nothing for three hours. Pisses me off. Now it's the last week of dress rehearsals and she's wanting to change things and throw in new cues that are unfamiliar to the cast and the crew.

I realise that she is a young director, but still, this shit shouldn't be done this late in the game. She doesn't seem to be able to think things through. I could have skipped a whole week of rehearsals and still been fine, and the time that I would have been on stage could have been used by the couple that were having trouble with their lines and blocking. Oh well, the show goes on this week, so next week I'll have every afternoon off after work. I'm looking forward to it. My yard's looking forward to it too. And my dogs. They used to be black and white, but now after all the rain and them trampling my yard to mud, they are black and brown. Just waiting for the weather to warm up enough to give them a bath.

My Aunt Ruthi just sent me a youTube video from the Fargo flood, she lives there.
YouTube - Fargo Flood Fight 2009 will get you to the video. I recognize some of the places, especially the Fargo dome where they were filling sand bags, that is where i went to my first real rock concert. my little washout just doesn't even register on the scale compared to what Fargo went through this last week.

Ok, I'm back

Ivan theTerrible is back.

Many things happened over last couple of years - left Ukrainian TV company for TV distrubution (now I'm in NBC Universal International TV Distr. team), thus moved from Kiev to Moscow.
Not married yet, not bold, still a TP fan (now on Making Money), hope to visit UK this summer.

Ivan the Terrible.

Oy, Ivan! How's Moscow compared to the Provinces?

Glad to see you around.

Hail! Ivan!

What crazy things are you inflicting on those TV watching Russians?

It is wonderful to hear from you Ivan, I'm reading Making Money just now myself!

Thanks guys!

>Roman.
Moscow is pretty shitty People are very stressed and gloomy, the city itself is ridiculously Gulliverish (in both, streets and buildings) if compared to Kiev or London.
Saint Petersburg, Kiev and London are much better.

>Spiky
Hah, everything I sell them - from House MD to Fast and Furious Even Georgia and Azerbaijan are now fans of House and Heroes

>TamyraMcG
Yep, a great book But I'm really waiting for the next one, that should be about football and Uuk

>Hsing
I had one, but can't recall the username/ password, so will stick to the new one

Ivan, its a pleasure to meet you.
R.

Ah, so the ole city hasn't changed one bit since I was last there a decade ago. Sometimes I think of Moscow as a city that's waiting to die.

I'm eating Easter( well maybe you could call it Passover candy?) candy, for breakfast even though it isn't until tomorrow, I got it from Adam on Tuesday. He gets a kick out of this sort of thing, He would even have let me dip eggs if I wanted to. We had a bit of an adventure yesterday, I'm off work for a week or so and he was planning a longish road trip so I asked to ride along. We went to International Falls, to look at the file on a sheriff's deputy who has been charged with 33 counts of sexual misconduct with his stepson, I won't go into details, what ever happens, that family is messed up but good now.

We went through a little town on the way, Adam has been telling me since I first met him that he'd been thinking of moving there. It is a tiny little town and the town board is offering a commercial lot free to who ever can prove they can start a business there, that perked Adam's ears right up, but it is quite a hike from Bemidji and he isn't quite ready to say goodbye to his little house there. We had a picnic in a park alongside the falls, the Big Fork river is running well this time of year and it was very nice and a little loud. I have a feeling he'll be posting pictures sometime in the future.

We also took a little tour of the courthouse while we were in International falls, the city has resored a courtroom back to it's original condition, they still use it but it has the decor of a century ago and i was impressed at how well they have managed to add on to the original court house with out detracting from it's beauty and usefulness, possibly because it was very well designed in the beginning. I like International Falls.

On a much sadder note, my nephew who has been in trouble did it again. I haven't read the charges against him but he was driving a car he shouldn't have been driving or even owning, and not entirely sober while he was at it and he tried to flee on foot. We all are wondering if he ever bothers to think. He called my mom from jail asking her for help, he seemed to be pretty upset when she cut the conversation short because his 4 year old son came to her to tell her "Grampa needs a nitro pill". He was supposed to be coming to the farm for Easter, it would have been my first chance to see him since last June. I told my mom she can't even think about bailing him out this time. He just doesn't seem to understand there are other ways of dealing with boredom. That is what it mostly seems is his problem, he can't seem to see beyond the moment. I may be just looking at it from too far a perspective, but I can't understand why he would take such huge risks for such stupid reasons.

Hi - haven't been about for a long time as only have access to this site when I visit my mum's ( work 's firewalls are increasinly getting worse!) - no real news with me at all - I'm trying to decide what to do for holidays this year ( if I can even afford holidays!) Jet2 have started flying from Belfast to Dubrovnik so I'm thinking it could be a possibiliy... need to do more research....

Alsohave planned to check in here more often as Ihave planned to visit me mum for the next few weekends.

We should have server breakdowns more often...

Hi guys!

It wasn't hard, you just had to follow the smell... irate:

I reckon Mal should send out a board wide email every 6 months to remind slackers that we're here and waiting for them to post...

OK, I'm off for a 3 week round trip.

Lisbon - London (1 day) - St. Louis (Wedding - 11 days) - New York (5 days) - London (1 day) - Lisbon

A bit torn because my girlfriend's brother is in the hospital, but we really need to rest. (And by we I mostly mean her)

In other news, when i get back from the trip I have a new job! (Beats freelancing...)

Just had my 7th birthday cake of the week. I think I'm going to explode. Damn birthdays - they all fall at the end of April....
Breakdown in case you think I'm a complete glutton was:

Dad's birthday on Wednesday
My birthday on Thursday (that was 2 cakes as we tend to have cake in work for people's birthdays and I had one at home with the family)
Friday - friend Gemma in work
Saturday - friend Ange
Sunday - Brother-in-law's (and my sister baked 2 cakes, so I had 1 slice of each)

I think I will now go and fall down on a couch and hope that I don't have to move for the rest of the evening. Oy....:smile:

Well winter has hit here with a blast, read icy wind, rain and all round nastiness... I spent the weekend desparately trying to get things washed and dried and those close airer racks just don't do work for sheets. And when I mean sheets I mean the mountain of sheets that needed to be washed for the immenent arrival of my husbands brother with his crazy wife and spoilt 3-year-old. SO many sheets that the porr old dryer nearly carked it...

So this is going to be a fun week, I've got the ettiquette nazi sister-in-law staying, and I just can't be assed to do all the things that she expects, like make all meals and serve them on platters. Hell this woman hates me and she won't even talk to me even if we're the only people in a room and I've got A WEEK with her!!! Ahhhh!!!! Oh and I've got 20 essays to mark. So this is not the best week to talk to me because I can see myself murdering someone by the end of it...

Oh, we have a glut of them in October/November, too. Mating habits aren't that different, methinks

Statistically in Australia most births happen in August... meaning many parents get jiggy with it at Christmas. Well it is the season to be jolly.

You really found yourself?:surprised:You mean with my wooden spoon?:lol:
Welcome back, man=)

Feeling really bad today... I think I've caught that Pig Flu.

I keep breaking out in rashers!

Har-D-Har-Har.

Joc's telling dad jokes and its just too early in the morning...

I survived the visit from the in-laws. The crazy wife wasn't about much as she was at a convention for 'stamping' which seemed to be an arty-crafty thing of making your own cards. As I possess no art and definitely can't do craft I was left unable to even use this as a conversation starter. So we talked about dogs and their kid, 5 days later there wasn't much left to say. But I'm back and all is good

I 'm off down to London on Thursday for 5 days R+R. Anybody know of anything new that is worth visiting that's very cheap/free?

R.

Have you done all the various museums and galleries? Many of them are free these days.

Yeah done most of them...just looking for something new/temporary that i havent seen before..

cheers.

I'm sure Ba has said that on many occasions... Hang on in there Grace, It'll all be over sooner than you think

You betcha! I'm surprised you're not driven mad by that beard tickling you from the inside...

I have cellulitis again, I had to have TWO shots, and ten days on the pills, I'll be off work for a week, but I will only miss a couple days that I wasn't going to anyway. It had to happen just when my buddy James was visiting, I really wanted to go sing karaoke with him again but I was in the throes of a fever and I couldn't even think about going. Maybe next month. He brought me a dragon bookmark/letter opener/hairstick from Korea.

My folks are getting ready to hand their kids over to my brother, he and his wife are adopting them. Their youngest is 17 and probably could use some babysitting duty to keep her from getting ideas. Not that she probably doesn't have ideas, she has been going with her Kevin for nearly two years, they actually are a cute couple, even if my brother does call him Jeb.

Mom got Connor a new bike that looks like a motorcycle, he told me it was very heavy, I told him if he wiped out on it he would have to pick it up, so when he wiped out he did pick it up. He has to get used to handbrakes. I told him he could hand his old bike down to his sister but he didn't even want to think about that! It'll be a couple years before she can use it anyway, by then he probably won't mind so much, he'll be way too big to ride it. She is walking now and starting to talk with real words. I'm going to miss them, I know they will be back to the farm a lot, but I'm sure I'll hardly ever be there when they are. Such is life.

Sorry to hear that your sick Tam and I'm glad all is well (comparatively speaking) with the baby Grace.

Well after nearly a year of sinusitis and denial of antibiotics by the doctor I finally got into the ENT specialist and joy of joys they need to operate. So in a months time I get to have my nose cut open and bits straightened and cut out. With any luck this means I won't be in constant agony, unable to breath and so stuffed up that I felt like a teddy bear... Here's hoping.

I did okay on my blood test, I've still got an elevated white count but that is a good thing when you have an infection, it seems to be a less severe bout this time so while I am glad to be off I do hope to go back to work sooner then last time. I get to do some serious reading

Last week was a week of joyful hell. My mothers 70th birthday began on tuesday (with me running around making tea for 14 people (that was approx. 148 cups by the way), cleaning up after, etc. ) and ended on Saturday night. I was designated taxi driver for the week as I have finally given in to the fact that I cannot drink. I minded 2 mothers-in-law (neither of them mine) because I can be polite and actually seem like I mean it, and ended up being the chaperone for my aunt with Alzheimers. Four dinners on various nights, one wedding that I missed most of because of family dinners etc...

And to top it all off I have a heavy head cold and chest infection and every time I sneeze in work, somebody oinks. That gets old really, really fast. Trust me.

Well I'm back. Now news from Peapod. Well I'm unemployed, single again, and looking into going to university. I have 3 weedings to go to in the next 2 years and my Great granmother passed away in April. I have also failed my driving test and will be re-siting it at the end of June and my best friend isnt talking to me because I won't go to see her even though it's my dad's birthday tomorow. I think thats it so far.

Hope everyone who is ill gets better soon. Oh I forgot to add that I have seen a spesalist about my bad knees. The problem is that one of my muscles is weaker than the other and the stronger one is trying to compensate for it so now I have to do exersises and strap my knee if I am sitting down for long periods of time. It hurts when I take the tape off but hopefully my knees will get better and I won't have to see the specalist again.

My girlfriends 13 year old cat died and her families dog ruptured a tendon in one of his rear legs. It has been a fun week.