It's not the same thing, it was a different shark Ted.

I watched (most of ) Jaws last night, I missed the 'you're going to need a bigger boat' line, unfortunately.
Now, watching a film on Canadian TV can sometimes result in a slightly odd experience.
At the end of each ad break there is the advisory message. Doesn't matter what time of day or night it is, they still tell me that parental discrection yadda yadda.
Even after the warning some of the channels still over-dub certain lines.
This was hilarious when watching Die Hard a while back. The famous line, you know, THAT LINE, became yippe-kay-yay my friend.
And instead of Samuel L. being a you-know-what, he was, guess?
A melon farmer!
Anyway what was I talking about? Oh yeah, Jaws. They blanked out some words.
It was Jaws. What can they possibly have blanked out?

ahh, why did you have go and annoy me?

Here's a nifty idea for a blog.
Rhys wants to get a blog from each of the Countries/Territories in the Blogspot.com profiles.
So I decided to join up and mentioned that I was Irish but lived in Canada. There were about 3 or 4 other people interested in the Canada spot and it was suggested that perhaps I could take the Irish connection.
All fine and dandy.
There were a few other people in similar situations, from one place and living in another. They have taken whichever spot. There are still lots of empty places so if anyone knows people in the relevant country send them over to the site.
Then yesterday I went back to check the progress and in the comments was this little remark from someone called dr. a.
"it's a real pity that Amanda is not from Ireland unless it is now a state of Canada instead of the USA. :-o " and then a link to his/her site.

Well.

First off, they are called provinces and territories in Canada not states.
And second, as anyone who knows an Irish person is aware, don't ever, and I mean ever, say we are not Irish. The Canadians have a similar thing about being called American. And the Portuguese with Spanish and probably everywhere else too.
I left a comment on the World of Bloggers site, but it's set with comment moderator so it didn't show up.
I understand that, it's Rhys' site and he can make that decision.
I emailed dr.a. to ask for an explaination as to why he/she knew more about my nationality than me.
"I was confused by the comment you left on the World of Bloggers blog site.> I was born in Ireland and the only passport I hold is my Irish one.> I moved to Canada 8 months ago.> So how exactly am I not Irish?> Amanda Foley"
and got a reply
"Sorry in your profile you say you are living in Toronto, Canada no mention of Ireland and I didn't read the comments at the top of your blog. I was in the office and didn't have time to fully read your blog. My apologies."

Now, my dilemma.
I could write back and point out that leaping to conclusions from one word is not a great idea, that we don't have states in Canada and accept the apology.
or
Do nothing.

pride before .....a nose-dive, plummet, topple, plunge etc

Found this here and couldn't resist trying it out.
Myheritage is a site for people looking in to their family tree, not something that would normally interest me, but the my hertitage.com site allows me to upload a picture of a face and cross reference it as lots of other people have uploaded their own family photos in an effort to find long lost relatives. It gets interesting when I realise they have also installed a section of this database with famous people as well. I upload a picture and the face recognition database matches me with the following people:
First on my list was Ninette Tayeb.
never heard of her. Wikipedia says - Israeli rock singer and the winner of the 2003 , Pop Idol of Israel.

moving on.


next was
Thor Heyerdahl, Norwegian explorer, anthropologist and author.




fair enough. Getting better.










next up, Nicole Kidman.
Who got to give Mr Clooney his Oscar earlier this year.
















add to this Jessica Alba

Bing Crosby and

Halle Berry and
Nadia Comaneci a Romanian gymnast, winner of five Olympic gold medals, and the first to be awarded a perfect score of 10 in an Olympic gymnastic event,
and I'm feeling pretty positive about this whole thing.
Helped along nicely by the next on the list, the delightful Ewan McGregor.

Ewan McGregor
This list is looking good, an interesting group I'm part of here.
And then
it all turned to, well, it went bad.
The final name on the list?
Margaret bloody Thatcher. That's not her real middle name. Not now, not ever been a fan of this woman, which is a polite way of saying that I don't think I'll be too upset if she doesn't get her telegram from the Queen.
(does the queen still send telegrams to people who live to 100 years old?)
And it was going so well....




you know you want to try it for yourself -here.

lesser known opera

If your job was to type the closed captions/subtitles for television programs you'd check your spelling right?
I will never win any spelling bees and am always making mistakes (I am mildly dyslexic though and don't always see them). Most of my mistakes are from just not checking what I've written, so for anything important, I check.
From a TV show earlier this evening:
Female character: that was lie I'm not busy Thursday, actually I do like the opera, my favourite is Die Fledermaus.
the caption read : that was a lie I'm not busy Thursday, actually I do like opera, my favourite is Dave Flaydermus.
Dave
Now, don't get me wrong the only reason I know how to spell it is because of Frasier.
And the only time I have ever been to the opera I didn't have a clue what was going on. In my defence it was a few years ago, in Budapest, the opera was in Italian( I think) and the dot matrix translation was in Hungarian.
Luckily the venue was spectacular and all in all it was worth every forint of the 5 quid it cost.

The comet's coming, stir the kool-aid

The whole template design thing is probably a sign (yeah that I shouldn't mess with things when I don't know what I'm doing and also that I really should read those dialogue boxes that come up) that I need the protection of the compound. Luckily my place is booked here.

Check with the boss if there are any more spaces available, I think there might still be a need for "a woman in a leather cat suit who is good with grappling hooks, a large man made entirely of living stone, a little girl who can shoot microwaves from her eyes, and someone who likes to cook light meals with panache"
I'm sure there won't be any kool-aid to stir.

fer cryin out loud

Note to self: Next time you get the idea to 'see how other templates would look' - DON'T.

I lost all my links, my little weather thingy and my cute little map with all the dots on it.
Took ages to get it all sorted out again and then for some reason the sidebar jumped all the way down to the bottom of the page.

I'm going to blame the weather, I mean, it's 11.30 at night , 26 degrees and still feels 31 degrees.


update: after lots of random clicking about I found the old map, so now I have 2!

It's classified. I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.

It's probably best not to ask how I know about this site.
The person posting wants to stay anonymous for reasons that become obvious fairly quickly.

I might apply for one of the jobs at Hotel Canadian myself, waching cars pays $4,800 a month.
Not bad. But is it washing cars or watching cars?
For that sort of money either is fine.

still thinking....

Quick update on That Girl Emily.
As Taffy has posted the banners have been seen in a couple of other cities so it's definitely not a real situation.
What ever it is for I hope they can live with themselves for the mindless torture inflicted on Baw-wee here.

Wait, there's a guy on our team who dresses like a pirate?

I'm thinking about what to post today (makes a change, huh? usually it's just some random junk) so in the meantime a joke, what with Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest being out and all:

One day a Pirate and a bartender were talking to each other in a bar. The Bartender asked the pirate "Where did ya get that peg leg from?" The Pirate responded "We were sailing the seas when a big ol shark came up to me while I was swimmin and bit off me leg."
Later the Bartender asked "Where did you get that hook then?" The pirate responded "Well, me crew and I were in a battle and it got cut through the bone."
The bartender then asked "Then where did ya get the eye patch from?" The pirate said "In a harbor I looked at a gull flying over head and it took a dump right in me eye."
The bartender was puzzled and asked the pirate, "How would that make you get an eye patch?" The pirate responded, "First day with the hook."




the quote is from a different film though.

Only one minor injury

Today we decided to assemble the chest of drawers we got from Ikea a couple of weeks ago.
There was just one minor disagreement as to what the word horizontal meant.
And only one injury when Iain hit his thumb with the hammer. It did look painful and there was some hopping about and swearing.
We now have a chest of drawers so I can finally unpack those last couple of packing cases (to be fair, at this stage they are mostly unpacked on to the floor anyways).
When I went looking for the Ikea photo I found this game where you match up the Ikea catalogue item discription to it's name. I managed to get all 10 wrong! What are the odds?

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

That Girl Emily needs some help on the fury part.
I saw this picture on a website today.
Some clicking around later and the idea seems to be that it is some sort of marketing campaign.

It all started with a blog here.
That Girl Emily.

She starts a blog and less than 2 weeks later finds out that her husband Steven is having an affair with her best friend.

I have no idea if this is true (there are a lot of things to suggest it's not, the private investigator, the banner etc) but it's certainly getting a lot of traffic.
Over 64 thousand profile views.

The blog itself is just like a chick lit book. Bridget Jones with pilates.
If it is just some sort of viral marketing setup, so what ?
It was going well, until the latest thing.

The thing is, she says" It’s going to be 14 days of vengeance. 14 days of unbridled revenge. 14 days of Steven looking over his back to see what’s coming next. "
She starts with the banner, pretty good. Very public, got to be embarrassing.
Posts a video of the happy couple on YouTube, hands out flyers on the street calling him a dog.
Yep that's some vengeance.
She even gives away his wine collection. Not very original but still, that's got to at least annoy him.
That brings us to day -something- I don't know, I wasn't counting. What does she do ?
She knows his online passwords, so does she sign him up for every scam and spam on the internet? Send some sort of embarrassing email to everyone in his address book?
No.
Her "unbridled revenge" is to mess with his fantasy baseball team.
That's it?
Come on Emily or team of marketers, a woman scorned and that all you've got?
His fantasy baseball team. Maybe it's just me, but that doesn't scream *Vengeance* to me.
Am I missing something vital with the whole fantasy baseball thing?

What do you want to be when you grow up, honey?

I can't remember where I read the line that got me thinking today, but whoever you are thanks for the spark.
The idea was - what if we all grew up to be what we wanted to be as kids?
The world would be full of astronauts, brain surgeons, train drivers and ballerinas.
I doubt many kids dreamt of being accountants, call center operators or waitresses.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there is anything wrong with those jobs (apart from the call center one) and all the other non-glam jobs we never wanted as kids. If everyone was driving trains, dancing or in outer space then who is going to bake the bread or run the power plant?
I may have mentioned in previous posts that I am currently not fully employed and with the whole too-much-free-time thing I have compiled a list of alternative jobs I (maybe) want.
1. Astronaut. Yep, I wanted to do this. Ireland - not known for it's space programme.
I may be a bit old for this one, am afraid of heights and can't tell left from right so it's time to give up on this one.
2. Interior designer. I could do this one, except if you want your whole house in shades of beige/magnolia/buttermilk/whatever they are calling it these days.
3. Props buyer. The Warner Brothers Studio was where I discovered this job. Paid to shop for movies and television. Please let me have this job.
4. Professional list maker. Need a list compiling? reasonable rates.
5. Crisp tester. Extensive world-wide experience. Need crisps testing? look no further.
6. Ballet dancer. I am also willing to learn tap, latin and jazz. I draw the line at line dancing, no pun intended.
7. Palm reader. I just need to get a scarf and some big hoop earrings and I'm all set.
and The Job I Really Want: George Clooney's companion/official photographer/dog walker/towel holder. This one might be a bit of a challenge, he never answers any of my letters or phone calls, he is too busy having a pint I suppose.



anyone get the movie quote? it's a tough one, so some clues.
1995.
Two actors, both often said to be the best.
also Val Kilmer.

There's no place like home....

I was watching a re-run of the X files.
The curtains, a couple of minutes before, gently wafting in the breeze were now almost horizonal.
A bright flash of light.
And just for a nano second I thought - Mulder was right and the aliens are here to abduct me.
The loud *CRACK* was not the UFO landing though, it was the branches of the very large and very old tree across the road being ripped off.
The shower of sparks was not some fireworks either. That was the power line coming down.
Out on the street there is stuff flying everywhere, branches and bits of paper and some of the dozens of orange traffic cones...
One intrepid neighbour has picked up some of the cones and blocked the road off so that no one will drive over the live power line lying across the road.
One news guy said something about Tornado cells.
Eh? What the....?

I got this picture from Google, my street is nothing like this and whatever it was, didn't quite look like this but it was a very strange and interesting half hour.
I doubt the police officers who had to stop people walking over the power line for the rest of the night thought it was very interesting.

I believe in .....angels? really?

I meant to write about this before but, weelll, I forgot. Wad'ya gonna do? sue me?

Iain subscribes to "Canada's magazine of the Year" Macleans.
The July 1st issue had the Annual Canada Day poll and some of it was interesting reading.
I liked the responses to the question "whom do you feel uneasy around?"
Sex offenders naturally topped this one at 96% uneasy with them, alcoholics got 71%, then former mental patients, followed by born-again Christians at 31%.
Then further down the page were the numbers for what Canadians believe.
66% believe Jesus is the son of God, 62% believe angels exist and 65% believe that God cares about them personally.
Those numbers surprise me. Of course I have no idea what the percentages would be if the questions were asked in England and suspect they would be higher if asked in Ireland.
The percentages for other topics were much more Canadian. 63% of Canadians say recreational marijuana use is okay, 61% approve of or accept the idea of gay couples adopting children and almost 75% of Canadians disagreed with this "we should worry about Canada and let the rest of the world take care of itself".
Some of the topics had the equivalent percentage from the neighbours, like 78% of Canadians convinced that immigration is a good thing for the country, in the US that was 64%.
Not good news on the job front really, as 50% think that working hard won't necessarily get you to the top. However they spelt it neccessarily so I was going to ask for a job as a proof reader. I know my spelling and grammar can be less than ideal, but that's a rookie mistake right there.

Goooooooood morning Vietnam! It's 0600 hours. What does the "O" stand for? O my God, it's early!

Ok, it was actually 07.35 am, but close enough.
A Canadian friend of ours told us that there are two seasons in Canada.
Winter and construction.
It's definitely not Winter.
This morning, as with yesterday and every morning this week the road right outside the front of our house was getting nice neat square holes carved out of it.


I'm sure they have their reasons, but why do they have to start at half past the middle of the night?
And it is the middle of the night if you go to bed at 3.30am.

They take a break about 10am to go to Tims which gives the neighbours a chance to get their construction work done. Three of our neighbours are currently working on their houses. Two at the front of our house and one across the back. The guy across the back is particularly dedicated, starting at about 10am and NOT STOPPING till it's almost dark, about 8.30 - 9 pm. Must be the coffee that keeps him going.
Canadians are completly obsessed with Tim Hortons, the doughnuts, the coffee, the timbits, the always-huge queue. Our neighbour leaves his house to walk to our nearest Dead Tims to get his double-double (two creams two sugars).
Somehow, even though there are thousands of Tim Hortons across the city, there is always a queue. It appears to be the most addictive substance known to man and yet I (not usually known for being good at resisting temptation) have not succumbed to the Cult of Tim.
Dare I say it?
*whispers* I don't like the coffee, it's piss weak.
If, however, I'm only getting 4 hours sleep maybe I'll have to get a taste for it until the end of the construction season.

no more 'next blog' button for me.

That's it.
If it's not a plague of emo kids then it's a combination that is just odd.
Today, The Helpers of God, I think it was called, an anti-abortion site with all their talk of precious infants was followed by a blog from a woman in a panic about the pregnancy test she had just taken.
And then this one.
Do you think this person types this over and over or just does a copy and paste?
Five or six of these and I'd ALMOST had enough.
The one about toliet training a kid (I'll spare you the link) was when I made my decision.
No more next blog button.

It was a dark and stormy night...

The runner up was
"I know what you're thinking, punk," hissed Wordy Harry to his new editor, "you're thinking, 'Did he use six superfluous adjectives or only five?' - and to tell the truth, I forgot myself in all this excitement; but being as this is English, the most powerful language in the world, whose subtle nuances will blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel loquacious?' - well do you, punk?"
Stuart VasepuruEdinburgh, Scotland
you know you want to read the-rest.
I found it here along with tons of other great links.

To:

Location: sat on a wall, waiting for a bus.
Dear Mr Bluetooth,
You think you look connected and important.
Everyone thinks you look like a totally self important jerk.
Here are some clues, if you are waiting for a bus, haven't washed your clothes in a while and ARE NOT EVEN TALKING on the thing, you are not that important.
Unless you are driving or I don't know, emergency landing a helicopter, delivering a baby or fire juggling you don't need to walk around with the thing stuck to your head.
You are not in a video game or science fiction film.
Save your money, maybe use it to buy some laundry detergent and deodorant.
You have been told, don't annoy me again.
A

koreiwa kairu no ishu des ka?

You know those old wooden poles in the street for telepone lines and cables?
Sometimes there are notices for lost cats or yard sales attached to them.
The one at the end of my street has this screwed on to it.
Is this some sort of warning or a clue in a treasure hunt?
I have no answers to give you at this time.

Father Jack Hackett: What's that gobshite doing on the television?

Yet another version of the TV show Big Brother starts tonight. As usual I will be avoiding it like the plague. I have watched a total of maybe 30 minutes of BB over the years it has been on and really, I think the barrel is dry, stop scraping it. Please stop. I'm not the only one who wants it gone.
There are many reason why I hate the show. The way it tries so hard to be controversial, the phony psychological hype and the way some people get when it's on. They can't believe I don't watch it, and imply that I'm missing out on the event of the decade by not joining in. These people have no interest in the real live humans, barely a 'good morning' out of them, but when it comes to watching a bunch of fame obsessed freaks, everything is fascinating.
"would you like to see my photos of skydiving over the Great Wall of China?"
"not now, I'm watching some chickens peck the ground and a bloke walk around an inflatable pool for 10 minutes"

I realise that getting rid of BB will leave a gap in TV schedules so I have some suggestions.
Most of the best and not-so-good books have already been made into film or television but there is more out there than Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Bridget Jones, Catch 22 or the Great Gatsby.
So, let's start with the inspiration for BB, 1984 by Orwell, which of his other books can we use?
Keep the Aspidista Flying - working in a secondhand book shop, maybe not.
Animal Farm - not sure how it would work as as TV show. So moving on to other classic novels, To Kill a Mockingbird, been done.
Gone With the Wind, done.
Watership Down, I'm with Paul-Merton on this one, it should be called Watered Down Shite. I tried to read it many times, and found it to be a very powerful sedative. Also not sure of the televisual potential, dress people in bunny suits and film them trying to cross a busy road? Could work.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland could also work, get some fame obsessed nobodies to drink and eat substances that mess with their heads and bodies.
So classic literature is not so rich in pickings.
How about - Your Fifteen Minutes Are Up? In this show 'celebrities' have to explain why they are famous. If they are deemed to be famous just- because- then thay get send to an island. And that's it. Not filmed on the island, just left there. The first contestants will be Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie, Melissa Rivers, Jordan , any of the Backstreet-boys, you get the idea.
It could run and run.

is this thing on?

REM - Bad Day

yeah.
Not a good day.
Another day, another quote from a contractor. $14,000 for electricial work, sure let me just get my cheque book.
I waited in most of the day for him to tell me that too, as the appointment, originally for 6pm was moved to 'between 2.30 and 4.30'.
Needed a couple of things from the supermarket and almost got run over by a guy who should have had a disabled badge as he clearly was blind to RED traffic lights (and deaf too judging by the volume of his shit taste in music).
Annoying woman in the supermarket only wanted to stand where I was standing and examine carefully anything I was interested in buying. When I stopped and did a 180 turn to get away from her she followed me.
Eventually shook her off and got back outside and as I put my foot on the road to cross, the cyclist stopped at the lights decided that was the best time to spit. Not just a little spit, dredged up- from- his- knees-spit. MOST of it missed my open toed sandals.
Back home, foot washed, in need of a cold drink. Slice of lime in my water I think. I just sharped the knife but it still won't cut the lime properly, not until it has also cut my thumb that is. Lime juice in a fresh cut, lovely.
Applied for a few jobs last week and the only response I have had is
Hi, my name is Rajeev Arora, Agency Director for American Income Life Canada, Toronto. I’ve seen your resume posted online and I would like to have a conversation with you regarding an exciting employment opportunity we have available in Sales Management.

We are an insurance company providing supplemental life insurance products to North America`s associations, labour and credit union members. We are located and licensed in all 50 states, New Zealand and Canada. We are part of Torchmark Corporation (TMK), a Fortune 500 company and finally we are rated A+ "Superior" by A.M. Best.

Currently we have full-time and part-time openings at entry level sales, junior and senior management and marketing. There is no need for cold calling, prospecting or telemarketing as we provide 100% qualified warm leads. I am looking forward to speaking with you about this opportunity on a first interview.
What is it with the sales jobs already?
I realise that in the grand scheme of things, in this vast universe, my day is hardly a blip on the Bad Day Meter but the icing (or spit) on this day?
I had almost finished writing a long post on here and *WHooF* the whole thing disappeared.

Born on the fourth of July.

Happy Birthday Erik!
did you know that if you put Erik Foley into google some scary scientology stuff comes up?

look here.

Linkie Winkie

I'm curious

It's 32 degrees and according to my little weather thing over there in the sidebar, it feels 37. Which is officially too hot.
I decided on a half hour of blog searching and two of them had an item about linkie Winkie but neither seemed to know exactly what it was about and the webpage calls it a social experiment and that it's a very altruistic little site and loves to be talked about.
Has anyone else heard of it?
or maybe everyone has and I'm a week behind as usual?

July 1st

CANADIAN

Today is Canada day and Canada is 139.
There was lots of stuff going on (apart from the first day of the tour, Well done George Hincapie, and the World Cup) and we decided to hire a car for the weekend.
Leaving it till after 2pm on a Saturday means there is not too much choice left in the cars available and we ended up with some GI-normous thing which has a bit of a pimp-mobile look to it.




Lot's of chores to do tomorrow so today was a trip north of Toronto, some sightseeing and wild-life spotting (I saw Canada's national animal)





Then I saw this sign and the day was complete.

Quote of the Day.

I think I have mentioned before that we just have a basic cable package so the only channel Iain could get the England v. Portugal game on today was an Italian language one.
He watched the game with the closed captions/subtitles, which were in English.
The translation was sometimes a bit off and several seconds delayed.
They said a 3 times that one of the players taking a penalty(can't remember which one) was - arben faced. Arben faced? what does that mean?
At the end of the game the subtitles came up with this little gem:
and once again England lose on penalties
[cheers and applause]
and Portugal go on.