So here it is.
Queenie is a bit stretched.
blah blah blah edited out rant that would get Queenie into a lot of trouble if anyone other than Ammonite saw it....
So would someone please give Queenie a reason why she should bankrupt herself and give herself an early nervous breakdown in order to keep trying to please a whole load of people who just fucking please themselves all the time without any regard for the financial, emotional and psychic strain of being all things to all people that being Queenie entails, just because she's an accomodating type of gal?
Oh that's right. There's no fucking reason is there. Just some obscure sense of responsibility somebody inculcated in her at an early age that makes sure she'll never just say fuck it and disappear into south america with the funds.
more ranting..
But of course there's a good reason. And Queenie is just being unreasonable when she can't see it on a wet Wednesday when she can't afford to eat supper even. And she's homesick. And sick of spending the supper money on calls to other people.
And what the hell is this 'Anonymous' 'how many peope read your blog?' bullshit?
Sign your effing name if you make a comment on my blog you mingy bastard.
All Queenie has to talk to tonight is Lady Moonbeam.
You can tell, can't you!
I'm going to bed now.
Yous can all fuck off.
Goodnight.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
G'wan ya mad t'ing ya, Hugo!
Hugo the Boliverian Dragon Slayer has a liddel pop at Dubya the Devil today in the UN Assembly.
http://today.reuters.com/tv/videoChannel.aspx?storyid=410b4a1c3482483d2596efaf5e0b930fd1e4fb68
http://today.reuters.com/tv/videoChannel.aspx?storyid=410b4a1c3482483d2596efaf5e0b930fd1e4fb68
Understanding rural Nova Scotia
Apparently I never really will.
Ha, you puny mortals! I have studied under the great Kavanagh. I understand everything!
Epic
by Patrick Kavanagh
I have lived in important places, times
When great events were decided, who owned
That half a rood of rock, a no-man's land
Surrounded by our pitchfork-armed claims.
I heard the Duffys shouting "Damn your soul!"
And old McCabe stripped to the waist, seen
Step the plot defying blue cast-steel -
"Here is the march along these iron stones."
That was the year of the Munich bother. Which
Was more important? I inclined
To lose my faith in Ballyrush and Gortin
Till Homer's ghost came whispering to my mind.
He said: I made the Iliad from such
A local row. Gods make their own importance.
Ha, you puny mortals! I have studied under the great Kavanagh. I understand everything!
Epic
by Patrick Kavanagh
I have lived in important places, times
When great events were decided, who owned
That half a rood of rock, a no-man's land
Surrounded by our pitchfork-armed claims.
I heard the Duffys shouting "Damn your soul!"
And old McCabe stripped to the waist, seen
Step the plot defying blue cast-steel -
"Here is the march along these iron stones."
That was the year of the Munich bother. Which
Was more important? I inclined
To lose my faith in Ballyrush and Gortin
Till Homer's ghost came whispering to my mind.
He said: I made the Iliad from such
A local row. Gods make their own importance.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Love is blind
This is on the newswire this afternoon:
Forty-three-year old Mark Brian Harshbarger of Pennsylvania has been identified as the man who was accidentally shot during a hunting trip in central Newfoundland.
R-C-M-P initially reported his wife apparently mistook him for a bear.
The incident happened last Thursday night near Buchan's Junction. The hunting party also included two children and a guide. (VOCM)
Forty-three-year old Mark Brian Harshbarger of Pennsylvania has been identified as the man who was accidentally shot during a hunting trip in central Newfoundland.
R-C-M-P initially reported his wife apparently mistook him for a bear.
The incident happened last Thursday night near Buchan's Junction. The hunting party also included two children and a guide. (VOCM)
Monday, September 18, 2006
More about the Beta move
As I said before, I've moved over to Beta. It involves a lot of administrative work, which is always a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it means you don't have to be creative if you don't want to. On the other hand, it is grindingly boring when it involves a lot of click and point and click again on the laptop.
Also, my aching wrist/ elbow/ shoulder joints which are getting really bad again are not able for more than an hour of tagging old posts. And then typing for another thirty minutes is out of the question.
But I have 150 posts done.
I'd have more done, but I keep stopping to read old posts.
I was quite witty and interesting for a while back last winter wasn't I?
I wonder what happened to me?
le's have a liddel look at what we is blogging about...
Politics (47)
Work (30)
AHAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!! Methinks.
All the same, 24 themes is pretty good. Well rounded.
Scatty probably. Not able to settle on anything as usual.
I'm reading a very strange book at the moment.
Little Chapel on the River, by Gwendolyn Bounds.
It's strange for a number of reasons.
It's about a woman who had a very high flying career as a journalist with the Wall St. Journal. Admittedly she was the fashion correspondent, but fashion is big business and she had the designer clothes/ girlfriend/ apartment on Wall St./ hectic glamorous lifestyle us over-achieving thirty somethings aspire to.
Then 9/11 happened and she took stock.
She was out house-hunting north of New York, her apartment having been very badly damaged by the explosions, and happened upon a little town called Garrison Landing, in which there is a pub run by a man called Jim Guinan, who used to live beside the golf course in Springtown, which is of course my hometown.
And he reminds me of someone in the photos of him that scatter the book.
And the pub sounds just like my favourite pub ever, Smoothies (moment with head bowed in memory of Smoothies and all its memories), just a little bar below the house, with flexible opening hours and a laconic owner.
So she fell in love with the pub and the family that ran it, and the people who drank in it, and the town in which it was situated, and all of that, and moved to Garrison Landing and took a leave of absence from her job to work in the pub.
Which is of course what I did a year and a half ago, except the job in the pub never quite materialised. And I had nothing that I had fallen in love with apart from an idea of a place which turned out to be wrong, but in a good way.
And the book is structured very like my blog. A bit of narrative about my life. Some pen pictures of other people. Snippets of introspection and memories. Descriptions of the surrounding countryside.
No politics but. Just the occasional mention of Donatella. Or Tommy. Or other random rich people.
And a severe case of the attachments to a manky old camp that she spent summers in at an impressionable age. the fact that she was nine and I am thirty six is irrelevant.
So the parallels exist but are a bit bendy, not truly straight as parallels should be.
The existence of which mean that I have many emotions concerning this book and the woman who wrote it.
Firstly, the emotion I always have when I read a book.
Someone sat down and wrote this. So why don't I? Because I'm a lazy cow, that's why.
This one is getting annoying and is what stopped me reading before so I have to just get through it and get over myself as someone would say.
Secondly, a kind of patronising pity - if she were Irish, she would have been able to blend the glamorous life with having a nice little local. I mean, look at Bertie! Or Bono!
Thirdly, a kind of vicious hatred masquerading as pity. Effing Yank! She was ar muin na muice (I'm taking the piss here now because she keeps quoting 'charming Gaelic phrases' that Jim Guinan taught her), on the pig's back with her nice life and then it all went awfully wrong when her apartment was in the line of disaster from the Twin Towers destruction. And I'm halfway through and she still hasn't mentioned the fact that they brought it on themselves.
Fourthly, huge shame: why am being so uncharitable about what appears to be a thoughtful intelligent woman who has used the tragedy of 9/11 to figure out what is important in life?
WHICH ACTIVITY I TRY TO ENGAGE IN CONSTANTLY AND CONSEQUENTLY SHOULD ADMIRE IN OTHERS.
If I was to be brutally honest, I suppose the vicious hatred masquerading as pity is just jealousy.
Fifthly, a kind of smugness: I have done the same as her (changed my life to figure out what the important stuff is) and I haven't felt the need to write a book about it. And get an agent and get it published and write a gushy acknowledgement to just about everyone on the planet.
Sixthly - well you can imagine - a blog is just a book without a plot or an editor now isn't it, yes sirree bob, so get off your high horse MADAM.
More shame, in other words.
Maybe if I apologise to the woman I will be able to get over myself and finish the book and get over myself.
Sorry, Gwendolyn. I am enjoying the book despite my horrid little black soul.
Also, my aching wrist/ elbow/ shoulder joints which are getting really bad again are not able for more than an hour of tagging old posts. And then typing for another thirty minutes is out of the question.
But I have 150 posts done.
I'd have more done, but I keep stopping to read old posts.
I was quite witty and interesting for a while back last winter wasn't I?
I wonder what happened to me?
le's have a liddel look at what we is blogging about...
Politics (47)
Work (30)
AHAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!! Methinks.
All the same, 24 themes is pretty good. Well rounded.
Scatty probably. Not able to settle on anything as usual.
I'm reading a very strange book at the moment.
Little Chapel on the River, by Gwendolyn Bounds.
It's strange for a number of reasons.
It's about a woman who had a very high flying career as a journalist with the Wall St. Journal. Admittedly she was the fashion correspondent, but fashion is big business and she had the designer clothes/ girlfriend/ apartment on Wall St./ hectic glamorous lifestyle us over-achieving thirty somethings aspire to.
Then 9/11 happened and she took stock.
She was out house-hunting north of New York, her apartment having been very badly damaged by the explosions, and happened upon a little town called Garrison Landing, in which there is a pub run by a man called Jim Guinan, who used to live beside the golf course in Springtown, which is of course my hometown.
And he reminds me of someone in the photos of him that scatter the book.
And the pub sounds just like my favourite pub ever, Smoothies (moment with head bowed in memory of Smoothies and all its memories), just a little bar below the house, with flexible opening hours and a laconic owner.
So she fell in love with the pub and the family that ran it, and the people who drank in it, and the town in which it was situated, and all of that, and moved to Garrison Landing and took a leave of absence from her job to work in the pub.
Which is of course what I did a year and a half ago, except the job in the pub never quite materialised. And I had nothing that I had fallen in love with apart from an idea of a place which turned out to be wrong, but in a good way.
And the book is structured very like my blog. A bit of narrative about my life. Some pen pictures of other people. Snippets of introspection and memories. Descriptions of the surrounding countryside.
No politics but. Just the occasional mention of Donatella. Or Tommy. Or other random rich people.
And a severe case of the attachments to a manky old camp that she spent summers in at an impressionable age. the fact that she was nine and I am thirty six is irrelevant.
So the parallels exist but are a bit bendy, not truly straight as parallels should be.
The existence of which mean that I have many emotions concerning this book and the woman who wrote it.
Firstly, the emotion I always have when I read a book.
Someone sat down and wrote this. So why don't I? Because I'm a lazy cow, that's why.
This one is getting annoying and is what stopped me reading before so I have to just get through it and get over myself as someone would say.
Secondly, a kind of patronising pity - if she were Irish, she would have been able to blend the glamorous life with having a nice little local. I mean, look at Bertie! Or Bono!
Thirdly, a kind of vicious hatred masquerading as pity. Effing Yank! She was ar muin na muice (I'm taking the piss here now because she keeps quoting 'charming Gaelic phrases' that Jim Guinan taught her), on the pig's back with her nice life and then it all went awfully wrong when her apartment was in the line of disaster from the Twin Towers destruction. And I'm halfway through and she still hasn't mentioned the fact that they brought it on themselves.
Fourthly, huge shame: why am being so uncharitable about what appears to be a thoughtful intelligent woman who has used the tragedy of 9/11 to figure out what is important in life?
WHICH ACTIVITY I TRY TO ENGAGE IN CONSTANTLY AND CONSEQUENTLY SHOULD ADMIRE IN OTHERS.
If I was to be brutally honest, I suppose the vicious hatred masquerading as pity is just jealousy.
Fifthly, a kind of smugness: I have done the same as her (changed my life to figure out what the important stuff is) and I haven't felt the need to write a book about it. And get an agent and get it published and write a gushy acknowledgement to just about everyone on the planet.
Sixthly - well you can imagine - a blog is just a book without a plot or an editor now isn't it, yes sirree bob, so get off your high horse MADAM.
More shame, in other words.
Maybe if I apologise to the woman I will be able to get over myself and finish the book and get over myself.
Sorry, Gwendolyn. I am enjoying the book despite my horrid little black soul.
Books I've read since March... that I can remember
More reviews - this time of books
The Colony of Unrequited Love
and
The Navigator of New York
By Wayne Johnston
An election co-worker got me onto Wayne Johnston. A great writer from Newfoundland. Colony is the story of Joey Smallwood, the Liberal Premier who brought Newfieland into Confederation after the Second World War.
Great book.
Joey Smallwood was a relentless little bastard who tried to make his name by organising the rail workers and fishermen of Nova Scotia. By walking or sailing around Newfoundland in the snow. He didn’t do so well on the left but the Liberals spotted his potential and made him their whipping boy and eventually he got the Premiership.
Mostly the book is the tragedy that was his personal life – his alcoholic father, his unrequited love for the journalist Fielding, who delighted in tormenting him and whose hilarious History of Newfoundland a satirical look at the history of The Rock interspaces the fictionalised biography.
The Navigator is more fiction, but has biographical elements to it. Set in Newfoundland and New York, it is the story of a boy, abandoned by his father who ran off to be a polar explorer, who grew up and went to New York to be a polar explorer. And got in with Peary. Who sounds like a right little bollocks.
Not as good as Colony, but probably just as if you are into polar exploration.
The Delicate Storm
and
Forty Words of Sorrow
By Giles Blunt
My eternal hunt for the new James Lee Burke led me to this crime writer who writes out of Algonquin Bay, northern Ontario, a place I have always wanted to visit, due to its isolation and natural beauty. But it sounds terribly grim in the winter-time. Which is most of the time.
Detective John Cardinal is the same type of tortured soul that Robicheaux et al are, this time it’s money he stole from a crime boss to pay for his daughter’s expensive American education, and a wife with a bad dose of the blues. The crimes are pretty good though, the side-kick is a well-drawn female character and I can see myself following this series for a while.
Other detective novels
Pegasus Descending
By James Lee Burke
And
Hard Revolution
By George Pelecanos
Two of my favourite American crime writers. Pelecanos writes about DC, still mourning the loss of one Eoghan Barry. James Lee Burke writes about Louisiana and the bayou, still mourning the loss of most of New Orleans.
New Orleans gets mentioned. Surprisingly, Eoghan Barry does not. But then again, Hard Revolution is set around the assassination of Martin Luther King, a bit before his time.
So maybe that’s why.
Skin Divers
By Anne Michaels
I was blown away by her novel Fugitive Pieces a few months back, so I bought a book of her poetry just to see.
We roll over the edge into the deep field
Rise from under the rain,
From our shapes in the wet grass
Night swimmers, skin divers.
Very nice it is too to be reading poetry again. This is a book of love poetry and in the third section, usually the most innovative in your average book of poetry, Michaels takes on the personae of Marie Curie and Kathleen Scott and imagines their emotional state after the deaths of their spouses.
Did you know that when Scott was dying, he crossed out the word wife, which was on the inscription - ‘give this to my wife’ printed on the front of his diary and wrote ‘widow’ instead?
Bad Land
By Jonathan Raban
A history of the badlands, by the second best travel writer in the world – the best being Colin Thubron. Haven’t finished it yet, but it’s great so far – organised thematically as well as chronologically – Fences, Pictures, Heavy Weather, Clinging to the Wreckage – stuff like that. He captures the mournful emptiness brilliantly and following on Keepers of Truth, gave me some idea of what it would be like to live in Manitoba, which is why I didn’t want to move there.
Keepers of Truth
By Michael Collins
This guy is Irish apparently. I’ve never heard of him. Keepers was shortlisted for the 2000 Booker Prize, but I’ve never heard of it. I must have been out the day they announced it that year.
Again, annoyingly, this was in the Literature section of Doulls and not in the Irish literature section. I was about to move it as I always do (some day I will get caught doing this and barred from the shop forever) but I decided to buy it instead.
Wasn't I the lucky girl!
I really enjoyed this book. It’s a rant about the destruction of Middle America and I’d love to hear his take on things now that Bush and the Neo-Cons have swept the boards in that part of the world.
Bill, the narrator is the sub-editor on a small town newspaper in a once-prosperous manufacturing town. He gets caught up in a murder he’s reporting on with disastrous results. The characters and their over-intense interaction are well drawn and he has a great eye for the American media and the nuances of a small town and their intersection in the modern world.
Saving the World
By Julia Alvarez
My birthday book.
A story within a story. Author Alma Huebner is caught in writer’s block and ambivalent about her husband’s trip to the Dominican Republic to run an environmental project. She loses herself in the story of Isabel Sendales y Gomez, the head of a Spanish orphanage who, by chance, ends up accompanying the first expedition to bring the smallpox vaccine to the New World. Lots of story in a story parallels about the joys of being in love with an obsessive man and a ripping good story – two stories in fact – that intertwine very well. This woman is an Allendes who knows how to structure a story without making her protagonist fly when necessary.
Ta very much Mrs. Monkey.
The Colony of Unrequited Love
and
The Navigator of New York
By Wayne Johnston
An election co-worker got me onto Wayne Johnston. A great writer from Newfoundland. Colony is the story of Joey Smallwood, the Liberal Premier who brought Newfieland into Confederation after the Second World War.
Great book.
Joey Smallwood was a relentless little bastard who tried to make his name by organising the rail workers and fishermen of Nova Scotia. By walking or sailing around Newfoundland in the snow. He didn’t do so well on the left but the Liberals spotted his potential and made him their whipping boy and eventually he got the Premiership.
Mostly the book is the tragedy that was his personal life – his alcoholic father, his unrequited love for the journalist Fielding, who delighted in tormenting him and whose hilarious History of Newfoundland a satirical look at the history of The Rock interspaces the fictionalised biography.
The Navigator is more fiction, but has biographical elements to it. Set in Newfoundland and New York, it is the story of a boy, abandoned by his father who ran off to be a polar explorer, who grew up and went to New York to be a polar explorer. And got in with Peary. Who sounds like a right little bollocks.
Not as good as Colony, but probably just as if you are into polar exploration.
The Delicate Storm
and
Forty Words of Sorrow
By Giles Blunt
My eternal hunt for the new James Lee Burke led me to this crime writer who writes out of Algonquin Bay, northern Ontario, a place I have always wanted to visit, due to its isolation and natural beauty. But it sounds terribly grim in the winter-time. Which is most of the time.
Detective John Cardinal is the same type of tortured soul that Robicheaux et al are, this time it’s money he stole from a crime boss to pay for his daughter’s expensive American education, and a wife with a bad dose of the blues. The crimes are pretty good though, the side-kick is a well-drawn female character and I can see myself following this series for a while.
Other detective novels
Pegasus Descending
By James Lee Burke
And
Hard Revolution
By George Pelecanos
Two of my favourite American crime writers. Pelecanos writes about DC, still mourning the loss of one Eoghan Barry. James Lee Burke writes about Louisiana and the bayou, still mourning the loss of most of New Orleans.
New Orleans gets mentioned. Surprisingly, Eoghan Barry does not. But then again, Hard Revolution is set around the assassination of Martin Luther King, a bit before his time.
So maybe that’s why.
Skin Divers
By Anne Michaels
I was blown away by her novel Fugitive Pieces a few months back, so I bought a book of her poetry just to see.
We roll over the edge into the deep field
Rise from under the rain,
From our shapes in the wet grass
Night swimmers, skin divers.
Very nice it is too to be reading poetry again. This is a book of love poetry and in the third section, usually the most innovative in your average book of poetry, Michaels takes on the personae of Marie Curie and Kathleen Scott and imagines their emotional state after the deaths of their spouses.
Did you know that when Scott was dying, he crossed out the word wife, which was on the inscription - ‘give this to my wife’ printed on the front of his diary and wrote ‘widow’ instead?
Bad Land
By Jonathan Raban
A history of the badlands, by the second best travel writer in the world – the best being Colin Thubron. Haven’t finished it yet, but it’s great so far – organised thematically as well as chronologically – Fences, Pictures, Heavy Weather, Clinging to the Wreckage – stuff like that. He captures the mournful emptiness brilliantly and following on Keepers of Truth, gave me some idea of what it would be like to live in Manitoba, which is why I didn’t want to move there.
Keepers of Truth
By Michael Collins
This guy is Irish apparently. I’ve never heard of him. Keepers was shortlisted for the 2000 Booker Prize, but I’ve never heard of it. I must have been out the day they announced it that year.
Again, annoyingly, this was in the Literature section of Doulls and not in the Irish literature section. I was about to move it as I always do (some day I will get caught doing this and barred from the shop forever) but I decided to buy it instead.
Wasn't I the lucky girl!
I really enjoyed this book. It’s a rant about the destruction of Middle America and I’d love to hear his take on things now that Bush and the Neo-Cons have swept the boards in that part of the world.
Bill, the narrator is the sub-editor on a small town newspaper in a once-prosperous manufacturing town. He gets caught up in a murder he’s reporting on with disastrous results. The characters and their over-intense interaction are well drawn and he has a great eye for the American media and the nuances of a small town and their intersection in the modern world.
Saving the World
By Julia Alvarez
My birthday book.
A story within a story. Author Alma Huebner is caught in writer’s block and ambivalent about her husband’s trip to the Dominican Republic to run an environmental project. She loses herself in the story of Isabel Sendales y Gomez, the head of a Spanish orphanage who, by chance, ends up accompanying the first expedition to bring the smallpox vaccine to the New World. Lots of story in a story parallels about the joys of being in love with an obsessive man and a ripping good story – two stories in fact – that intertwine very well. This woman is an Allendes who knows how to structure a story without making her protagonist fly when necessary.
Ta very much Mrs. Monkey.
Albums I've bought since March
Time for some reviews I think.
Sleator-Kinney: The Woods
The brilliance of this album was driven home to me when it was nicked from the car by one of the teenage boy wonders only four days after I bought it. Usually it takes a couple of weeks for the sound to percolate through his curly mop, grown to hide his seventeen year old face from the rest of the world.
Thankfully I had uploaded it. I need say no more, it has all been said by people more qualified than me to talk about grinding guitars and screaming bass lines.
Precisely, it should have been the other way round.
Corinne Bailey-Rae: Corinne Bailey-Rae
Just Like a Star is a great love song. I like this album like I like my pink suede stiletto boots, because I bought it on the basis of a review and often that’s a bit hit and miss (unless it’s Franks of course). And just like my pink suede stiletto boots, it turned out to be totally me once I got it home.
I believe it’s being uber-hyped across the pond. Over here, it made a little splash, but nothing much, too soft for the R ‘n’ B sistas in Halifax, too girlie for the boys, too English for the Yankified. Just right for this girl.
Bruce Springsteen: The Seeger Sessions
Well, you knew I was going to buy this one didn’t you. Mweh… I do like the idea of it very much, and it is great for round a campfire when you’re getting the beers into you and the fire going, but it gets on my nerves after a while. Plus I can’t upload it as the cd/dvd thingummy setup it’s on won’t fit in my cd-rom.
Mundy: Live and Confusion
Somebody sent me this for my birthday. Again it’s a cd/dvd combo disc so I can’t upload it which means I don’t play it very often, as I don’t have a car anymore.
Keane: Under the Iron Sky
U2. Joshua Tree. Updated only slightly.
I feel old now.
It’s very whingey. And I believe Chaplin’s gone for a little rest in the Priory, so maybe the rest of them are getting a break now. But there are lyrics like:
Sometimes I get to feeling that I’m stranded in the wrong town…Is it any wonder that I’m tired/ Is it any wonder that I’m uptight
Bless him. He should try being sent to Glace Bay Nova Scotia for an election campaign.
When are the people who invent formats on computers going to invent something additional to Bold, Italics and underline.
The album’ll do for a Thursday night listen with a glass of wine and an absorbing task though.
Sam the Record Man: Halifax Indie Sampler 2006
Terry, my main man in Sam’s (who sells me my medicine, as he says) made me buy this the other day. It was only six bucks though. I’m just popping it on now, so I’ll go onto books and come back to this when I’ve had a listen.
I’ve had a listen. That was a bit of a letdown. Not as good as Ian’s magic Ireland mix. Honestly, I didn't like one song on it and the production values were crap.
NOT WORTH SIX BUCKS EVEN.
Sleator-Kinney: The Woods
The brilliance of this album was driven home to me when it was nicked from the car by one of the teenage boy wonders only four days after I bought it. Usually it takes a couple of weeks for the sound to percolate through his curly mop, grown to hide his seventeen year old face from the rest of the world.
Thankfully I had uploaded it. I need say no more, it has all been said by people more qualified than me to talk about grinding guitars and screaming bass lines.
Precisely, it should have been the other way round.
Corinne Bailey-Rae: Corinne Bailey-Rae
Just Like a Star is a great love song. I like this album like I like my pink suede stiletto boots, because I bought it on the basis of a review and often that’s a bit hit and miss (unless it’s Franks of course). And just like my pink suede stiletto boots, it turned out to be totally me once I got it home.
I believe it’s being uber-hyped across the pond. Over here, it made a little splash, but nothing much, too soft for the R ‘n’ B sistas in Halifax, too girlie for the boys, too English for the Yankified. Just right for this girl.
Bruce Springsteen: The Seeger Sessions
Well, you knew I was going to buy this one didn’t you. Mweh… I do like the idea of it very much, and it is great for round a campfire when you’re getting the beers into you and the fire going, but it gets on my nerves after a while. Plus I can’t upload it as the cd/dvd thingummy setup it’s on won’t fit in my cd-rom.
Mundy: Live and Confusion
Somebody sent me this for my birthday. Again it’s a cd/dvd combo disc so I can’t upload it which means I don’t play it very often, as I don’t have a car anymore.
Keane: Under the Iron Sky
U2. Joshua Tree. Updated only slightly.
I feel old now.
It’s very whingey. And I believe Chaplin’s gone for a little rest in the Priory, so maybe the rest of them are getting a break now. But there are lyrics like:
Sometimes I get to feeling that I’m stranded in the wrong town…Is it any wonder that I’m tired/ Is it any wonder that I’m uptight
Bless him. He should try being sent to Glace Bay Nova Scotia for an election campaign.
When are the people who invent formats on computers going to invent something additional to Bold, Italics and underline.
The album’ll do for a Thursday night listen with a glass of wine and an absorbing task though.
Sam the Record Man: Halifax Indie Sampler 2006
Terry, my main man in Sam’s (who sells me my medicine, as he says) made me buy this the other day. It was only six bucks though. I’m just popping it on now, so I’ll go onto books and come back to this when I’ve had a listen.
I’ve had a listen. That was a bit of a letdown. Not as good as Ian’s magic Ireland mix. Honestly, I didn't like one song on it and the production values were crap.
NOT WORTH SIX BUCKS EVEN.
Monday, September 11, 2006
Condi was here today
I suppose I'd better do the 9/11 thing. No disrespect to anyone who was affected badly by it, but better people than I can mark the occasion.
Condoleeza Rice marked the occasion by coming to Halifax, Nova Scotia to thank us all for putting up all the stranded air travellers when their planes were diverted from US airspace after the Twin Towers attack.
I'm suprised she kept a straight face while she was doing it.
Several times over the last few days, I have button-holed a Canadian and said the following:
So the Yanks diverted all the flights north to Canada after the Twin Tower attacks, eh?
Yes, they would say, all proud that they did their bit to save the free world from Terrorism again.
I would crack up laughing then, pointing and saying succccckkkkkkkkkkkerrrsss!
Time would pass.
The small sound of a Canadian penny dropping would be heard somewhere in their head.
Facial muscles would contort slowly as the mood changed from calm pride to wounded pride.
Eventually.... Those cocksuckers!!!!
Everytime... I swear it happened everytime I did it.
Granted, I mostly did it to people who don't really care about politics, but this is 9/11 we are talking about.
Seriously, there are 33 million LOVELY people up here in Canuckstan, who would mostly do anything for their neighbours, be they Yanks or whoever, who are being buttfucked by the Americans, with the assistance of their own government of course, and only 57 of them turned up to tell that 'disgrace to her gender' neo-cow to go home today.
And I wasn't one of them.
I must be growing up finally.
Anyways, the day that will never be the same again has come and gone again.
Condoleeza Rice marked the occasion by coming to Halifax, Nova Scotia to thank us all for putting up all the stranded air travellers when their planes were diverted from US airspace after the Twin Towers attack.
I'm suprised she kept a straight face while she was doing it.
Several times over the last few days, I have button-holed a Canadian and said the following:
So the Yanks diverted all the flights north to Canada after the Twin Tower attacks, eh?
Yes, they would say, all proud that they did their bit to save the free world from Terrorism again.
I would crack up laughing then, pointing and saying succccckkkkkkkkkkkerrrsss!
Time would pass.
The small sound of a Canadian penny dropping would be heard somewhere in their head.
Facial muscles would contort slowly as the mood changed from calm pride to wounded pride.
Eventually.... Those cocksuckers!!!!
Everytime... I swear it happened everytime I did it.
Granted, I mostly did it to people who don't really care about politics, but this is 9/11 we are talking about.
Seriously, there are 33 million LOVELY people up here in Canuckstan, who would mostly do anything for their neighbours, be they Yanks or whoever, who are being buttfucked by the Americans, with the assistance of their own government of course, and only 57 of them turned up to tell that 'disgrace to her gender' neo-cow to go home today.
And I wasn't one of them.
I must be growing up finally.
Anyways, the day that will never be the same again has come and gone again.
Jersey Girl in the Ovens with Travel Chests - Part II
So I had left off at the glimmering.
Anyways, the trunks turned out to be dead handy, in several ways:
- we sat on them around the campfire;
- we used them to block the not inconsiderable wind blowing up the east coast of America towards us that night as we camped;
- we piled all the camping stuff in them and strapped them to the roof of the car, and that is the only way we got all of the gear back up to Halifax;
- we packed everything in them to move to the new apartment;
- they provide useful end table, chest of drawers and table functions which means Queenie and Himself don't have to spend any more money on furniture than they absolutely have to (both of them having more than one set of furniture already, more seems like a stupid idea - it's one thing to have ninety pairs of shoes scattered across the western world, it's completely different to have ninety end tables.
Anyways, our night camping was great fun, if a little windy. We went down to the Chapin's family campsite family restaurant and bar, where we happened upon the Chapin Family Annual Get Together, which was why the campground was packed, this being an annual highlight of the Nova Scotia folk music calendar.
Queenie is very glad she didn't grow up loving the Nova Scotia folk music scene as she would have been a very sad (anorak sad) girl.
There was a grown man who had driven all the way from New Jersey to volunteer as a photographer at the event. He never missed one, he told me.
After just one or two songs we skedaddled out of the restaurant and left the table for REAL fans, bought some firewood (Himself was not too impressed with the need to pay for wood seeing as we were surrounded by the stuff) and lit a fire to see our beers by.
And talked about politics and the environment.
You know you have the right boyfriend when he and your friend's boyfriend can sit around agreeing that come the Apocalypse the world would be a better place due to the absence of nasty machinary and combustion engines (BH) and modernity in general (Himself).
Except for no more Anthropologie, I thought to myself but didn't verbalise it because it wasn't in the spirit of the evening and also because I was fairly sure Jersey Girl would be thinking the same thought, so I didn't need to.
After a few beers of that kind of talk it of course morphed into 'how can we speed up the apocalypse'. I think Himself was all for heading to the Albertan oil pipeline with a chainsaw and a vice grip, but I can't really remember for sure.
We managed to stop him from heading off right that night, so he went and got some more wood instead. Thankfully, he didn't burn any of the signs saying 'do not gather wood, not even dead wood - you will be fined and thrown out of Chapin's Happy Camping Place'. That would have been too cheeky. Instead he just cleared up a bit of brush and other bits and pieces, in an environmentally responsible way that was unfortunately highly unprofitable for the Chapins.
But there are some Canadians who think that the trees are for everyone.
Later that night after the moon came out and the stars were glowing really brightly, as if they were down in our atmosphere checking on the progress of the apocalypse, we went to bed. A couple of hours later I woke to find my face buried in the side of the tent, through which a storm force wind was blowing the canvass against my mouth.
bzrbzrbzrbzzrbzrbzrbzr.........bwbwwbwbwbwww.....
I can't really describe the sound properly.
I tried to move, but I was pinned. Himself was cold, so he had burrowed up against my back and wasn't for moving. Eventually I managed to wake him up, shivering in his sleep as he was.
He had brought the wrong sleeping bag.
He had to get up and put all his clothes on and then go back to sleep.
But it was dawn at that stage, so not a great night's sleep really. Some nights camping are like that.
Anyways, the trunks turned out to be dead handy, in several ways:
- we sat on them around the campfire;
- we used them to block the not inconsiderable wind blowing up the east coast of America towards us that night as we camped;
- we piled all the camping stuff in them and strapped them to the roof of the car, and that is the only way we got all of the gear back up to Halifax;
- we packed everything in them to move to the new apartment;
- they provide useful end table, chest of drawers and table functions which means Queenie and Himself don't have to spend any more money on furniture than they absolutely have to (both of them having more than one set of furniture already, more seems like a stupid idea - it's one thing to have ninety pairs of shoes scattered across the western world, it's completely different to have ninety end tables.
Anyways, our night camping was great fun, if a little windy. We went down to the Chapin's family campsite family restaurant and bar, where we happened upon the Chapin Family Annual Get Together, which was why the campground was packed, this being an annual highlight of the Nova Scotia folk music calendar.
Queenie is very glad she didn't grow up loving the Nova Scotia folk music scene as she would have been a very sad (anorak sad) girl.
There was a grown man who had driven all the way from New Jersey to volunteer as a photographer at the event. He never missed one, he told me.
After just one or two songs we skedaddled out of the restaurant and left the table for REAL fans, bought some firewood (Himself was not too impressed with the need to pay for wood seeing as we were surrounded by the stuff) and lit a fire to see our beers by.
And talked about politics and the environment.
You know you have the right boyfriend when he and your friend's boyfriend can sit around agreeing that come the Apocalypse the world would be a better place due to the absence of nasty machinary and combustion engines (BH) and modernity in general (Himself).
Except for no more Anthropologie, I thought to myself but didn't verbalise it because it wasn't in the spirit of the evening and also because I was fairly sure Jersey Girl would be thinking the same thought, so I didn't need to.
After a few beers of that kind of talk it of course morphed into 'how can we speed up the apocalypse'. I think Himself was all for heading to the Albertan oil pipeline with a chainsaw and a vice grip, but I can't really remember for sure.
We managed to stop him from heading off right that night, so he went and got some more wood instead. Thankfully, he didn't burn any of the signs saying 'do not gather wood, not even dead wood - you will be fined and thrown out of Chapin's Happy Camping Place'. That would have been too cheeky. Instead he just cleared up a bit of brush and other bits and pieces, in an environmentally responsible way that was unfortunately highly unprofitable for the Chapins.
But there are some Canadians who think that the trees are for everyone.
Later that night after the moon came out and the stars were glowing really brightly, as if they were down in our atmosphere checking on the progress of the apocalypse, we went to bed. A couple of hours later I woke to find my face buried in the side of the tent, through which a storm force wind was blowing the canvass against my mouth.
bzrbzrbzrbzzrbzrbzrbzr.........bwbwwbwbwbwww.....
I can't really describe the sound properly.
I tried to move, but I was pinned. Himself was cold, so he had burrowed up against my back and wasn't for moving. Eventually I managed to wake him up, shivering in his sleep as he was.
He had brought the wrong sleeping bag.
He had to get up and put all his clothes on and then go back to sleep.
But it was dawn at that stage, so not a great night's sleep really. Some nights camping are like that.
This blog's gone Beta
So I was talking to one of my uber-techie friends tonight by the miracle of Google Chat, and I said the blog was going Beta and he asked what that meant.
As if Queenie would effing know!!
What it boils down to is lots and lots of new gadgets to play with on the blog and the introduction of tags, which I have wanted for ever and ever, but could not figure out the HTML for, despite several patient coaching sessions from friends who have more time than sense. (in terms of dealing with my facility with HTML).
But now I get to label my posts.
Those of you who know me know that I LOVE to label things.
I should have been a Victorian botanist.
So that's a job for all the boring afternoons in the office when I should be reading some mind-numbingly boring energy sector report on effing wind turbines or solar panels or demand side management or some other yaaawwwwwn (I mean why don't they just do what the Germans did and build the effing things and clean up the air) subject. Instead of just sitting there reading the yawnathing, I can sit there and half read it and glance longingly over at the computer.
And dream of tags.
Summer's over.
Blog's gone Beta.
Back in a mo'.
As if Queenie would effing know!!
What it boils down to is lots and lots of new gadgets to play with on the blog and the introduction of tags, which I have wanted for ever and ever, but could not figure out the HTML for, despite several patient coaching sessions from friends who have more time than sense. (in terms of dealing with my facility with HTML).
But now I get to label my posts.
Those of you who know me know that I LOVE to label things.
I should have been a Victorian botanist.
So that's a job for all the boring afternoons in the office when I should be reading some mind-numbingly boring energy sector report on effing wind turbines or solar panels or demand side management or some other yaaawwwwwn (I mean why don't they just do what the Germans did and build the effing things and clean up the air) subject. Instead of just sitting there reading the yawnathing, I can sit there and half read it and glance longingly over at the computer.
And dream of tags.
Summer's over.
Blog's gone Beta.
Back in a mo'.
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