Sometimes, I am dumb

So, yesterday morning, I was doing a bit of tidying before my friend Alexcia came to stay, and had two bags of rubbish to get rid of. I carried one in each hand, and held my keys in my left hand, and took them to the communal bins.

I left my front door a bit open, but as I was walking away, I heard the wind slam it shut. "Whew", I thought, "good thing I have my keys."

I got to the garbage area, opened the big metal door and swung the bag in my left hand into the bin. As it was going in, however, the handle of the bag looped around my front door key and pulled it into the bin.

That's right. My keys. In the garbage. My front door. Locked.

Now, just to give you the right mental image of my stupidity, the bins made of metal, about five feet high, around four feet in diameter and on wheels. They're really big.

My keys were sitting on a black bin bag, and were about half way down. Obviously, I couldn't get them.

Someone had left a washing machine sitting in the garbage area, which is where we all leave big stuff to be picked up by the garbage men. (Actually, it was sitting pretty much right where the tree on the left is in this entry.) And I had a genius idea.

I would wheel the giant bin to beside the washing machine, climb up on it, and reach into the bin, and grab the keys. And then, ta da! I'd be all set.

I opened both the huge doors and wheeled the bin out. Due to the kind of wheels on it, I had to kind of turn at as I pulled it, creating a nice spinning out motion. I finally got it to the washing machine, climbed on, and reached in. And was still about ten inches away from the stupid keys.

So, I spun the stupid bin back into it's storage room.

I decided to knock on the door of the one neighbour I kind of know. She's nice, in a "lecture me about life in general" kind of way. But, of course, she wasn't home.

I was really stumped. Julia wasn't going to be home for ages, Alexcia was arriving in a few hours and I was totally stuck.

Then, like a beacon of hopeful light, a door on the building opposite opened. An young-ish woman walked out and I immediately ran up to her, all "excusemeI'msostupidbutIdroppedmykeysinthebinandneedhelpdoyouhaveacoathangeroranything". After she figured out my crazed speech, she told me that she didn't live there, but was just the carer. A teensy tiny little old woman walked out behind her, and I went into the whole speech again. The teensy tiny little old woman (or TTLOW) went and got me a Marks & Spencer hanger.

I raced over to the bin, and reached in. I was still about 8 inches away from those damn freaking keys. Dammit!

TTLOW called out to see if I was having any luck, and when she heard I wasn't, mentioned she had a stepladder. She walked back into her house, and I followed her in, because she was teensy and tiny and shouldn't be carrying ladders for me.

I grabbed the ladder, hauled it over to the bin, climbed up, reached in with the hanger, and ..... SUCCESS!!

I snagged the key ring on the end of the hanger, and was back in business. I carried the hanger and stepladder back to TTLOW and thanked her profusely. She really was very nice.

So, half an hour of idiocy later, I was back in my flat.

Needless to say, I will be carrying my keys in my pocket every time I go to the bins now. The lesson, she is learned.

Meme-a-rama

A) Four jobs I have had in my life:

Camp counsellor, bowling alley attendant, background talent agent and TV production manager

B) Four films I would watch over and over:

Can't Hardly Wait, Some Kind of Wonderful, Zoolander and Overboard.

C) Four places I have lived:

Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario (1977-1987), Goderich, Ontario (1987-1996), Toronto, Ontario (1996-2001), London, England (2001-now)

D) Four TV shows that I watch:

Currently, I am Sky Plussing Dirty Sexy Money, Brothers & Sisters, Reaper and Skins.

F) Four people who e-mail me (regularly):

I am a bad e-mailer and thus do not get many in return. I probably get the most from Heather, Leanne, Lindsay and Robin.

G) Four of my favourite foods:

Kraft dinner, pasta of almost any kind, Thai food, Indian food. Mmmmmm.

H) Four places I would rather be right now:

Rather than here in my office, procrastinating? On holiday somewhere sunny, at home sleeping, in the pub getting drunk and in my garden.

J) Four favourite authors:

Let's call this four of my favourite authors. Jane Austen, Nora Roberts, Kazuo Ishiguro and Marian Keyes. That's just off the top of my head.

Oh, and also?

If you're in the UK, please watch Football Hurts tomorrow, Thursday 14th Feb on Nuts TV at 9pm.

Thanks!

"You realize you haven't blogged since December, right?"

Uh, yeah. I do know that. I'm sorry. But seriously? It's February? February 2008? How did that even happen?

Doesn't it seem like it was just the beginning of 2007 mere minutes ago? 2007, which was terrifyingly known as the year in which I will turn 30 and which will now be remembered as the year in which I turned 30, was pretty good, on the whole. It was a mix of the really good and the horribly awful, which is pretty much par for the course for any year. I did let the blog lag a bit on 2007, and for those of you still reading this, I'm sorry for that. I'll try and do better this year.

I haven't been doing much Londonist-ing either, which I hope to remedy. I'm in LA this weekend for a shoot, then I'm on holiday for a week, and then it'll be March.

March!! Seriously, this year is just disappearing on my at a frightening rate.

Here's an anecdote to keep you amused while I scurry to a corner, curl up in the fetal position and rock back and forth, bemoaning the year slipping away on me.

So, every morning, I get to work about the same time. I usually get off the Tube at 9:30 or so, and as I walk from the station to the office, I generally see the same guy. He's very tall, with glasses and blonde hair. He's walking to the station as I walk away. We don't say hi or anything, because that would be insane, but he's one of the people that I see every day, and if I saw somewhere out of context would spend about an hour thinking "how do I know that guy?".

There are a lot of people I see fairly regularly, but this is the only guy I see virtually every day, no matter whether I'm a bit early or a bit late. And today, I realized why.

I got off the tube at 9:30, and who was walking towards me? TWO of this guy! He's actually identical twins!

I've seen him (or, possibly, one of them) every day for like two years. And I never noticed. I just thought it was weird that this guy had the same schedule I had. But now I don't know if I've actually been seeing one of them, or they've been alternating.

This has really shaken my whole world view.


Twins. That's just so sneaky.

Huh. How 'bout that.

I just realized that I've been writing this blog since August 2004, and this November was the first month that I haven't posted anything.

That was a pretty good streak I had going there, and I didn't even realize. For shame, Alice. For shame.

What?!?!?!?

The Internet: "What? You haven't posted anything in MONTHS, and you're posting a freaking meme?"

Alice: "Suck it, Internet. You're not the boss of me!"

From Your Dirty Answer:

1. Go to the Wikipedia home page and click Random Article (on the side menu). That is your band's name.
2. Click random article again; that is your album name.
3. Click random article 15 more times; those are the tracks on your album.

BAND NAME: Ravensthorpe, Dewsbury (That is actually an awesome band name)

ALBUM NAME: Meadow Well Metro Station (And an AWESOME album name! My band rocks)

TRACK LISTING:

1. Wolf Spider (it's so dark where we are right now)
2. In These Veins (this is our tribute to the 4th album by Swedish extreme metal band Hearse)
3. Lady Of The Night (and this is our tribute to the Donna Summer album. We are a band of contrasts.)
4. Jiří Malec (this is a lyrical song that tells the story of the famed Czechoslovak ski jumper who won a bronze medal in the 1980 Olympics)
5. Kōge, Fukuoka (this is a peppy number about getting lost in the Japanese town of Kōge)
6. Sander Westerveld (this is the song our bass player wrote about her crush on the Dutch footballer.)
7. York Regional Road 25 (also known as Major Mackenzie Drive, this is a loving tribute to the much maligned York Region, north of Toronto)
8. History of Malmö (this is an instrumental number, featuring a 7 minute keyboard solo)
9. Silver Star (this is a song about travelling from New York to Miami on train, with guest vocals by Gloria Estefan)
10. Jay Ovittore (this is a scathing look at American politics)
11. Virtual High Throughput Screening (we're pretty sure we were drunk when we wrote this. We barely can understand it ourselves)
12. Earth and Water (this one's pretty sanctimonious - it's about saving the environment and we can get pretty preachy when we set our minds to it)
13. Korea Aerospace Industries KFX (the radio stations won't play this - it's too shocking)
14. Nitrobike (this was our first single. It was huge in Germany)
15. Alive in an Ultra World (this is an extended cover of all the songs on Steve Vai's album in one, uninterrupted stream. It's 70 minutes long.)

We're doing a world tour in 2008. Tickets go on sale in January. Hope to see you then!

Ooooh!

Guttenberg news! Guttenberg news!

Stalked By Celebrities

Fact. David Thewlis is stalking me.

I know what you're thinking:

"Alice, he's a celebrity. He's in the Harry Potter movies, for God's sake. You're just a television production manager who writes a blog. Why would he possibly be stalking you??"

Well, I don't know the answer to WHY, do I? I'm not the one doing the stalking. But I can tell you that it's happening.

SHOCKING AND TRUE FACT #1:

On Tuesday 4th September 2007, I flew from Dublin to London on an Aer Lingus flight. Who did I notice walking onto the plane in front of me? One David Thewlis. I thought little of it, except that I recognized him but couldn't remember his name at the time and it was driving me crazy. I remembered it a few days later.

SHOCKING AND TRUE FACT #2:

On Sunday 30th September 2007, I flew from Los Angeles to London on a British Airways flight. Who did I notice at gate 120, waiting for the flight? Oh, that's right.

David Thewlis.

And, to make matters even more disturbing, he arrived at the gate before me.

He's clearly not following me - he knows where I'll be before I'm even there.

Spooky, no?

I'm flying to LA again at the end of the month - if he's on my return flight again, I'm calling the cops.

It is kind of flattering though. Hmmm, do you think he reads the blog?

Wow, remember when I had a blog?

Yeah, so sorry for not actually updating this in ages. Whoops!

I've been doing a fair bit of writing for Londonist, and working like crazy. And yes, that's it. It seems that I went on holiday, but I can hardly remember that now, it seems so long ago.

But wait! How better to remember it than with pictures?



Oh, you'd be laughing too if you were having super good times with Alice.




I got to hang out at a gorgeous cottage, with a gorgeous baby...



and his equally gorgeous mommy. And you're crazy if you think we didn't have fabulous meals, delicious frosty cool beverages and many, many laughs.

Because we did.

And then I spent a week in Toronto...




and got to visit with these fun people, who I don't get to see often, but who I have known for a very, very long time. (Holy crap, I just realized I've known Wendy for 20 years. Madness!)




And I also saw these fun (and classy!) people, amongst many others.

It was a great trip, and I had a fantastic time. And although I've only been back for three weeks, I totally feel ready for another holdiay. I'm ill and stressed and tired. Sigh.

But at least I still have holiday time! Thank god for the UK, and their 20 holiday days per year. I don't know what I'd do with only 10.

Some other stuff I've written

So, you know this Londonist thing? Well it's working out very nicely.

I'm all official and on the staff page now (woooo!) and trying to write something every day. I'm also doing a weekly tv/online/radio recommendation post which is much harder than I thought it would be, but is still fun.

I quite like this post, which I wrote today. "Handbag Reveals Actual Treasure"

Here's where you can find other stuff I've written for Londonist.

It's fun, no?

It's Ex-Pat Meme Time!

I love a good meme, and found this on Noble Savage. As I am an Ex-pat, I shall participate with delight!

5) Name five things you love in your new country

• The ready availability of pubs, and the socialising that occurs within them
• The lack of winter
• The fabulous friends I've met here
• My flat
• London, which is my favourite city in the world

4) Name four things you miss from your native country

• My fabulous friends and family back home
• Leaves changing in the fall
• Kraft products (primarily Kraft Dinner & Creamy Cucumber Salad Dressing)
• Having a car

3) Name three things that annoy you in your new country

• Charley on Big Brother (I know, why am I watching this show??)
• How hard it can be to meet people
• The lack of summer

2) Name two things that surprise you (or surprised you when you arrived) in your new country

• The fact that everyone I know lives in debt
• Going to the movies is so expensive! Why must it be so pricey?

1) Name one thing you would miss in your new country if you had to leave

• The social aspect of life in London

It's supposed to be summer...

This is what it looks like outside my window right now. It's noon.



I just heard thunder. And this is the forecast from the BBC's weather site.



That grey streaky square under Friday? Yeah, that's "heavy rain". All day long.

I thought this was summer? I find this unacceptable.

The TV Of My Childhood

I found a link to The Top 10 Unintentionally Funny TV Intros on the always entertaining Pop Culture Junkmail, and found it to be deliciously awesome.

I was inspired by it to look up some of my favourite shows from when I was a kid, and because they are all so eighties fabulous, knew they had to be posted here.

Growing Pains

We moved to Goderich when I was 9. Before then, I really didn't watch much TV. I know, you don't believe it. But it's true. We moved in January, and I remember during one of the first days in Mr. Mason's grade 4 class we were doing a unit on graphs, and the class was taking surveys to display in graph form. Fully half the class covered the riveting topic "What's your favourite TV show", and I didn't have one. That's right. I did not have a favourite television show. I picked Growing Pains because like half of the class had picked it and it's important to conform in the 4th grade.

After that I grew to love it though, and developed the requisite 1987 crush on Kirk Cameron. Ahh, Kirk Cameron. So dreamy before he went insane.

Family Ties

We used to watch Family Ties as a family. Good quality wholesome family fun, that was. Good times. I just bought season 1 on DVD and it's held up pretty well. And it's got a kick ass theme song.

Night Court

I wasn't just a fan of the family sitcom. I also enjoyed a nice office comedy - especially if set in a New York small claims court. Oh, the wackiness! I recall being very invested in the storyline between Markie Post's character and her cop boyfriend. That's right. I cared about Markie Post.

Perfect Strangers

Speaking of awesome theme songs, I love this one. It's so inspirational. And who can't relate to the story of mis-matched cousins from different countries who end up living and working together .... and becoming best friends. I think I'm going to cry.

Facts Of Life

I am female and grew up in the eighties. Of course I love Facts Of Life. It would be crazy if I didn't. Jo was my favourite. I thought she was so cool. Remember, I was very young.

Who's The Boss

I was watching an episode of How I Met Your Mother recently and a character asked who the boss was. Clearly the responses were "Tony", then "Angela", then after a pause "Mona". And I laughed. Oh, how I laughed. I have a very vivid memory of the guys in my sixth grade class all getting their hair cut like the kid who played Jonathan. Like I can laugh though - that was the year of hair sprayed bangs and multi-coloured slouch socks.

Head Of The Class

I loved this show. Less so in the post Howard Hessman days, but I still watched it. Who can dislike a show with many, many musical episodes? Sure, the kids were performing in musicals, but still they did it first. I also had a crush on the tough guy, who also appeared in one of my favourite eighties teen movies Camp Cucamonga.

The Hogan Family

Ah, Jason Bateman before he was cool. Good times, I tell you. I remember shockingly little about this show, but I know I liked it.

Gimme A Break

I used to watch this after school. It was on after Facts of Life, as I recall. You know, I'd bet that in the future, archeaologists are going to find all these sitcoms from the eighties and decide that every household had a sassy black houskeeper and/or a sassy British butler. The main thing is the sass. That's the most importnat part.

Ah, eighties sitcoms. So delightful. Just think - kids growing up today are going to be sitting at their computers reminiscing about that stupid sitcom with James Belushi. These are sad, sad times we live in.

Spelling with Flickr

What's that you say? A way to waste time at work? Fantastic, I say!


I got this from Ragdoll, and found it a fabulous idea. Here's my Flickr blog title:

To make your own, go here. Or, you can look up the letters yourself like a sucker. Not that anyone I know did that. Ahem.

I've seen this like five times now...

but it freaking kills me every time.





Ah, those lolcats. So funny.

Party Paranoia

I am a nervous party planner.

Every single time I have ever planned a party, or really any large-ish gathering of any kind, I have sent myself into a frenzy of nerves. I worry that I've invited the wrong people, or not enough people, or too many people, or that the people I've invited won't like each other, or that I've forgotten to invite someone and they'll be mad, or I accidentally sent an invite to someone who hates me and they'll be even madder, or that the party will just suck.

And, of course, because I am me, I worry if I don't get responses fast enough. Even though I myself am notoriously bad for getting an email invite and thinking "yay, that sounds fun!" and then completely failing to repsond to it, I still panic when people do the same thing to me.

Even when I know for sure that lots of people are still coming, I will still be ready way too early, and panic because I'm certain that no one will show up and I'll be the loser who sits alone in her tidy flat with a beer in her hand and a sad, sad look on her face. Of course, that never happens, and I don't think I've ever had a bad party. But still, I am a worrier.

Clearly, this is all leading up to the fact that I'm having a barbeque to celebrate Canada Day, which is a very exciting day for us Canadians. It should be fun, and really even if only a few people come, it'll still be a good time. But I still stress. Because that's who I am. I am a stresser.

I bought some decorations already, so I'm committed now. No turning back.

And hey - if you got an email inviting you to the bbq? Can you email me back please? It'll help reduce my levels of stress.

Gosh, it's been a while, hasn't it?

So, sorry about the lack of blogging. I'm not very proud of myself, and you've got every right to be peeved with me.

But we can still be friends, can't we?

Oh, good. I'm glad we got that sorted out.

So, what's been new with me? Well, I've been doing a bit of writing for a fab blog called Londonist. You may have heard of it - and if you don't live in London, there are many other "ist" websites. There's probably one for the city you live in!

Anyway, I've been writing for them for a few weeks now, and I'm enjoying it a lot.

Here are a bunch of the posts I've written recently:

• Cat Rescue
• Danger! Danger!
• Owl Rescue
• Hosptial Food Deemed Not Delicious
• Ornithologists rejoice!
• TinyTinnyTanic
• Global London
• Harry Potter Madness At Natural History Museum
• Marmosets!
• Poetry Hits The High Courts
• Breaking (In) News: Crime in London

So, that's what I've been up to. Feel free to check it out and let me know what you think. But only if you think nice things. If you've got mean things to say, you can keep those to yourself.

What's new with you?

Sometimes, photos speak for themselves....

Impulsive Decisions

I've needed to get my hair cut for quite a while now - the last time I had it done was before Christmas, and it was looking pretty shabby. So, I booked myself an appointment at my hairdresser of choice for Saturday, and was all set.

"So, what are you going to get done?", I was asked on Friday.

Like a flash of inspiration, the answer came to me.

"I think I'll go a bit blonder. You know, for summer. And ..... I think I'll get a fringe!"

For the sake of clarification, at this point I should explain that what we in the UK call "a fringe", in Canada we would call "bangs". Just so you don't get confused.

And so, I tell her what I want. But I just say "a fringe". I do not say "a fringe, but longer and kind of side-swepty and not too short, and did I mention not too short?"

Clearly, I should have said that, if that's what I wanted. Because that is not what I have.

I have a fringe. And it's not a sweepy, long, non-fringe, fringe. It's a proper fringe. It's bangs, baby.

Bangs. It's madness, I tell you.

I'm getting used to it though. I think. Oh, impulsive decisions. You're so much fun.

Funnier in my head...

See, I live in the UK, and we do not get the US version of Dancing With The Stars. We have the old school Strictly Come Dancing. And since I don't even watch that, it seems unlikely that I will watch Dancing With The Stars, should it make it's way to our shores.

So, as with all American shows I haven't seen, when I read things about them, I'm forced to create a mental version of the show that often bears no resemblance to the real thing.

Yesterday, I was reading this, and this line made me laugh out loud:

Do you think Tom Bergeron hates himself? I think he hates himself. He took this shitty hosting job, probably thinking that he'd make a quick buck and no one would ever actually watch the show. I mean, really. Dancing? With the stars? How long could that last? And yet, four seasons and some huge ratings later, here we are.

Because, see, I read it wrong, and had in my head this man as the host of the show:



I was so sad to learn the truth. Beacuse, really, is my version not infinitely better than some former news reporter and Hollywood Squares host?

The star of one of my favourite movies of all time - and don't you pretend that you don't think Major League is an under-appreciated classic, because you know you do - commenting on the dance moves of Heather Mills-(ex)McCartney?

That, my friends, is comedy gold.