Everywhere I go in Cyberland, there are lists. Lots of lists. Apparently, the end of the year gets people thinking about what was really good for said year and the "Top 10" list gets trotted out to the masses. Who knew? So, in honour of this magical tradition, here is my top ten list of random crap related to Christmas.
Top 10 Random Crap relating to Christmas (in no particular order)
1. Subversive Christmas Movies
Who wouldn't love a bit of holiday cheer? Well, me for one. I love me a bit of The Ref or Scrooged... so much better than the sugary sweet fare they usually offer around Christmas. In fact, it's not quite Christmas unless I see Denis Leary abusing Kevin Spacey and Judy Davis... ah, memories...
2. Christmas Pudding
I found a recipe for Christmas pudding in one of the ancient magazines at work one year and it's been a staple ever since. It is full of untold goodness.
3. The search for the perfect Mince Pie pastry
Every year, I find a new recipe. Every year, crushing disappointment. I thought I might have gotten close this year, but nope. Bugger. Damn Balfours and their yummy pastry. I just know it's made with powdered egg concentrate and milk substitute.
4. Putting up the decs!
Even though I have to wait until after my sister's birthday (everyone knows that the Christmas Pagent means you can put up the tinsel and lights... who cares that it's at the beginning of November?), I still love me a bit of Christmas decoration fun times.
5. Reading about Vanessa's trip to France for a skiing Christmas
No one wants to hear about the insane amounts of fun you are having. No one!
6. The Crappy DJs Magic Cave
It in no way reaches the splendour of John Martins Magic Cave (you are missed!), but its still fun times. I guess... :)
7. Reading all the lists on the internet and disagreeing heartily.
Always a fun past time.
8. Being glad I am not in England for Christmas.
While I love the place to pieces, it is -3 some days. -3!
9. Having to work through Christmas.
Actually, that sucks. Ugh.
10. Getting drunk and eating too much.
Ah, merry, merry times.
Hope you all have fabulous Christmases!
xx
Wednesday 19 December 2007
Tuesday 18 December 2007
Salve. Come sta?
I received travel brochures in the mail today, which was just awesome. I look at the pictures and it so makes me want to go back to Europe. Ah, Europe. You are so fabulous.
Friday 7 December 2007
Fiendish plotting to return to the land of scaffolding
Greetings all,
Now that the big reporting of the trip is all over, the blog will return to its regularly scheduled programming of random crap. To that end, would you believe I've watched commercial television once since being back? It's been almost a month and I completely missed the election ads, Mr Bankrupt and whatever ploy fast food chains are using to convince you that their food really isn't filled with grease and sugar. I love the internet, the reason for this utopia of tv. Downloading is awesome (and if any legal types are reading this, I swear I get all my stuff from Malex, I in no way download myself, and if I did, it would be my alternate personality, Massie. Talk to her.)
In other news, I have decided to learn Italian so when I return to the land of excess and pizza, I can actually converse in some sort of fashion with the natives, instead of me trying to piece together a phrase from a, well, phrase book and having the person I'm trying to speak to look at me as if I'm crazy. Yeah, that so didn't happen when I was trying to order gelato... no, not at all. Anyhoo, I found a couple of places and the leader is the SA Italian Didactic Centre, a naff little place that is bound to be you beaut, true blue (or voi bellezza, azzurro allineare, as those wacky Italians say). Another place, eLingual, wouldn't get back to me, so I feel they might be missing out on my hard earned dollars. Sucked in to them.
Anyway, has anyone else ever wanted to learn a language? Which one/s?
Now that the big reporting of the trip is all over, the blog will return to its regularly scheduled programming of random crap. To that end, would you believe I've watched commercial television once since being back? It's been almost a month and I completely missed the election ads, Mr Bankrupt and whatever ploy fast food chains are using to convince you that their food really isn't filled with grease and sugar. I love the internet, the reason for this utopia of tv. Downloading is awesome (and if any legal types are reading this, I swear I get all my stuff from Malex, I in no way download myself, and if I did, it would be my alternate personality, Massie. Talk to her.)
In other news, I have decided to learn Italian so when I return to the land of excess and pizza, I can actually converse in some sort of fashion with the natives, instead of me trying to piece together a phrase from a, well, phrase book and having the person I'm trying to speak to look at me as if I'm crazy. Yeah, that so didn't happen when I was trying to order gelato... no, not at all. Anyhoo, I found a couple of places and the leader is the SA Italian Didactic Centre, a naff little place that is bound to be you beaut, true blue (or voi bellezza, azzurro allineare, as those wacky Italians say). Another place, eLingual, wouldn't get back to me, so I feel they might be missing out on my hard earned dollars. Sucked in to them.
Anyway, has anyone else ever wanted to learn a language? Which one/s?
Tuesday 4 December 2007
And that's all she wrote
The next day, Prash and I hung out, going to Covent Garden to buy some Campers (yay for Campers!) and checking out the markets there. Poor Prash, I made him wait while I tried on all my beautiful Camper shoes... It's not good to have an obsession! Anyway, we looked in lots of shops, ate a "full english" for lunch (that's Full English Brekkie - sausage, eggs, bacan, baked beans (!) and toast... it was great!) We then went to Seven Dials so I could do a bit of invetigative research... only to discover I'd already been there! Little did I realise, my second day in London I went to Seven Dials as that's where the musical Chicago was playing... silly Cassie!
After the Seven Dials fiasco, we went to Camden Markets, where we looked at dodgy markets until Prash's friend Lance turned up and then we actually went to the cool Camden Markets! I bought a lovely purse and Lance showed us the raver store, where they sell all that weird-arse raver stuff that those crazy kids wear to, well, raves and you never really think that they must have bought it somewhere and, well, that's where they buy it! They had fluro clothes, and stuff that looked like the Jetsons clothes and tshirts that have LCD screens... it was all very whacked out and cool. Anyway, I left those guys at about 3pmish and went back to my hotel room where I crashed it for a bit. Then it was on to Wicked!
I met Bree and a friend of hers out the front of the theatre and we went in for Wicked fun times. For those not in the know, Wicked is the Wizard of Oz from the witch's point of view. It was very good, and completely different from the book on which it is based! I bought the book in Manchester, cos I knew I was going to go see the show, and, um, didn't really think it was all that and a packet of chips. But the musical was awesome, and I love how they developed a friendship between Glinda and the wicked witch. Awesome! After Wicked, I said goodbye to Bree and crashed it big time!
The next day was my very last day in England! *sob* I got up at the crack of dawn and hoofed it to Vanessa's house to collect all my stuff for the big pack, which had to occur before check out! It was absolutely freezing as for my last day, the weather had decided to gift me with a truly awesome London day - it was 8 degrees and no cloud. Oh well, at least it wasn't raining! I made it back to my hotel with all my stuff and proceeded to pack and repack and repack again. Once everything was sorted, I left my bags there and went to Hyde Park, where I just couldn't be bothered actually going into the park. So I wandered about, looking in a few shops, before going to London Bridge to meet Vanessa for our big farewell! I got there a little early, but the Borough Markets were up and running so I checked out all the yummy food. Mmm!
Vanessa and I then met up and we went to the cute teacup place for high tea! It was awesome. And then it was sad times as we said goodbye to each other... but we did promise to email! Ah, you gotta love technology. Anyway, was walking down the street when I remembered I still had Vanessa's keys... the whole reason we were meeting for lunch! So our second goodbye occured and then it really was all over red rover ;p
I wandered about a bit more and then decided I'd just go early to Heathrow. I was going to leave about 5.30pm for my 10pm flight, but I figured that was peak hour traffic on the tube (and on a Friday) and I just couldn't be bothered fighting the hoardes. So I went back to the hotel, gathered my things and caught the tube. Yeah, there were still heaps of people even at 4.30pm. However, I caught the Picadilly line and everything was trundling along nicely... until they decided to terminate the line four stops before Heathrow. Damnit! By this time, it was almost 6pm, so I was really glad I had chosen to go early! Anyway, it was all change and luckily there was another tube to Heathrow waiting for us. I got to Heathrow about 6.30pm and made my way to the check-in desk. Yeah, Heathrow is not pretty. It was actually a bit gross and haphazard, at least that was my first impression. After all the security checks, I made my way into the passenger lounge, which was a bit more impressive. However, it was still a bit weird, as they didn't have a definitive barrier between the security checkpoint and the lounge... you could have quite easily mistakenly wandered past the security guards. Oh, and they make you take your shoes off to be xrayed after you've gone through the x-ray thingy... it was interesting!
Anyway, bummed around the airport, had some dinner (boots sandwich... awesome!) and, of course, my flight was late. Yay! It was interesting, tho, cos the airport had shut down... I think my flight was the last one! After going through another checkpoint to get into the pre-flight waiting lounge (where the security guard looked at my passport, looked at me, looked at my passport, looked at me, and then waved me through) I waited for another 20 minutes and then it was boarding the plane and winging my way back home!
And that's it, kids! The big trip all over... it was so completely awesome. I'm so glad I went and I definately want to go back as soon as I can!
After the Seven Dials fiasco, we went to Camden Markets, where we looked at dodgy markets until Prash's friend Lance turned up and then we actually went to the cool Camden Markets! I bought a lovely purse and Lance showed us the raver store, where they sell all that weird-arse raver stuff that those crazy kids wear to, well, raves and you never really think that they must have bought it somewhere and, well, that's where they buy it! They had fluro clothes, and stuff that looked like the Jetsons clothes and tshirts that have LCD screens... it was all very whacked out and cool. Anyway, I left those guys at about 3pmish and went back to my hotel room where I crashed it for a bit. Then it was on to Wicked!
I met Bree and a friend of hers out the front of the theatre and we went in for Wicked fun times. For those not in the know, Wicked is the Wizard of Oz from the witch's point of view. It was very good, and completely different from the book on which it is based! I bought the book in Manchester, cos I knew I was going to go see the show, and, um, didn't really think it was all that and a packet of chips. But the musical was awesome, and I love how they developed a friendship between Glinda and the wicked witch. Awesome! After Wicked, I said goodbye to Bree and crashed it big time!
The next day was my very last day in England! *sob* I got up at the crack of dawn and hoofed it to Vanessa's house to collect all my stuff for the big pack, which had to occur before check out! It was absolutely freezing as for my last day, the weather had decided to gift me with a truly awesome London day - it was 8 degrees and no cloud. Oh well, at least it wasn't raining! I made it back to my hotel with all my stuff and proceeded to pack and repack and repack again. Once everything was sorted, I left my bags there and went to Hyde Park, where I just couldn't be bothered actually going into the park. So I wandered about, looking in a few shops, before going to London Bridge to meet Vanessa for our big farewell! I got there a little early, but the Borough Markets were up and running so I checked out all the yummy food. Mmm!
Vanessa and I then met up and we went to the cute teacup place for high tea! It was awesome. And then it was sad times as we said goodbye to each other... but we did promise to email! Ah, you gotta love technology. Anyway, was walking down the street when I remembered I still had Vanessa's keys... the whole reason we were meeting for lunch! So our second goodbye occured and then it really was all over red rover ;p
I wandered about a bit more and then decided I'd just go early to Heathrow. I was going to leave about 5.30pm for my 10pm flight, but I figured that was peak hour traffic on the tube (and on a Friday) and I just couldn't be bothered fighting the hoardes. So I went back to the hotel, gathered my things and caught the tube. Yeah, there were still heaps of people even at 4.30pm. However, I caught the Picadilly line and everything was trundling along nicely... until they decided to terminate the line four stops before Heathrow. Damnit! By this time, it was almost 6pm, so I was really glad I had chosen to go early! Anyway, it was all change and luckily there was another tube to Heathrow waiting for us. I got to Heathrow about 6.30pm and made my way to the check-in desk. Yeah, Heathrow is not pretty. It was actually a bit gross and haphazard, at least that was my first impression. After all the security checks, I made my way into the passenger lounge, which was a bit more impressive. However, it was still a bit weird, as they didn't have a definitive barrier between the security checkpoint and the lounge... you could have quite easily mistakenly wandered past the security guards. Oh, and they make you take your shoes off to be xrayed after you've gone through the x-ray thingy... it was interesting!
Anyway, bummed around the airport, had some dinner (boots sandwich... awesome!) and, of course, my flight was late. Yay! It was interesting, tho, cos the airport had shut down... I think my flight was the last one! After going through another checkpoint to get into the pre-flight waiting lounge (where the security guard looked at my passport, looked at me, looked at my passport, looked at me, and then waved me through) I waited for another 20 minutes and then it was boarding the plane and winging my way back home!
And that's it, kids! The big trip all over... it was so completely awesome. I'm so glad I went and I definately want to go back as soon as I can!
Monday 3 December 2007
And now for something completely different...
I went in to the kitchen at work today to have my usual plunger coffee, opened the freezer door to take out my beautiful, STOREBOUGHT (ie, I had to pay for it, people) ground coffee to discover that someone had helped themselves. To my coffee! And not just a little, oh no, they had taken most of the jar. I was peeved, people, very peeved. In fact, so angry I had to break the glorious continuity of the travel blog with this update. So, this person, or persons, has not only perpetuated one grevious crime but two. TWO! Whoever they are, I curse them and the fleas that infest their armpits.
*mumbles angrily into the distance*
*mumbles angrily into the distance*
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