Alien Spouse

Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

I am extremely glad that I am able to say that I have never experienced domestic violence first-hand, but this weekend a colleague of mine lost a close relative.  She was beaten to death, and the police currently have her boyfriend in custody.

Hearing that when I arrived at work this morning has, well, overshadowed everything else.  I really don't feel like making jokes or posting pretty photographs, but I will take this opportunity to say that October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month in the US, and there is a website here with all of the information.

The One Definite Thing in Life.

I cannot believe that Michael Jackson has died, I simply did not see that one coming quite yet.  Farrah Fawcett too, but that was slightly more to be expected because she had been suffering from cancer.

Perhaps the reason it seems so very odd is that both of them have been slightly less in the public eye in recent years, so when I picture them mentally I'm probably thinking of them in their twenties when they were really at the height of their fame.  Fame is a very odd thing.

An Alien Who Speaks Her Brains.

As you know, here at Alien Spouse we are not afraid to speak our minds on controversial issues.  

• I don't like really hot weather, I would far rather be too cold than overheated.
• Gay marriage?  Sounds perfectly lovely!  I have no problem with it at all, and look forward to attending many same sex weddings.
• If the choice is between Malteasers or Whoppers, then you can bugger right off with your Whoppers. Thanks all the same.
• Global warming is not a good thing, and, yes, I think industrialisation probably has got something to do with it.
• What is Twitter for exactly?  I think it's different things to different people, for example my friend David uses it to track and disseminate both breaking news and classic 80's rock songs; whereas my imaginary monkey friend Pablo uses his to keep us up-to-date on the issues that matter to primates.  Personally I like it because it feels one step closer to telepathy.

 Now that I've warmed you up with some easy ones, prepare yourself for my latest bold statement.

•  I prefer being on holiday to being at work. 

 There I've said it.  That is my position on the matter, and I don't care who knows it.

The Knitted Village.

This is very impressive, a miniature replica of a village knitted by people who live there.  The BBC has photos here, the report says that it took 40 people 23 years to complete

The only thing that worries me is the amount of space it must take up, because it's hard to tell from the pictures and they don't give a precise square footage.  Apparently this is going to be sold off in individual pieces to raise money for charity, but I bet not all of it will be sold or they just start making another one.

This is precisely why I make sure I know where my amigurumis are going before I start them, otherwise I'll get over attached to them and my entire house would end up waist deep in chubby little figures made from yarn.  Although the cats would love that I'm sure.

Speaking of amigurumis, I am gearing up to make Rorschach from "The Watchmen" this weekend, I bought the right colours of cotton yarn when we were in Philladelphia but I've been putting it off because I have no idea how I am going to do the face, or the hat and those are the main distinguishing features.  Anyway, I'll sketch it out tonight, and just start the thing tomorrow.

After that I'm going to make something for my cousin Hollie (She initially asked for the green monster, which I think means Cthulu, but I'm thinking we may need to discuss this a bit before I start), but then there will be a new contest.  So it won't be for a few weeks, but I want to give you some advance notice because this is going to be a bit more complicated than the first one, and it's much more about you guys! 

Here's the basic idea,

1. You suggest characters that you would like to see crocheted amigurumis of. 
2. I will then pick a shortlist (Let's all assume that I get more than one entry for this! Hopefully!), and do an initial sketch how I think I would make them.
3. I will post those basic designs, and you can vote on which character I make. 
4. The winner will be the person who originated the idea, and they will get the amigurumi, so make sure you suggest things that you actually want!  

It can be a fictional character or real person (Like Niall's Zombie Queen Mother), or something you've totally made up, but can describe clearly (Ella's guess of a vampire librarian bunny would be a great example, I know exactly how I would do that!).  Anything you want to see crocheted, I will try and work out how to make.  So consider the idea, and be ready for phase one soon!

Don't submit any entries yet.

I'm just mentioning it now, so you can think about it for a bit.

My Plans for a Long Weekend at Home.

This being Easter weekend I have four days off (although I was told it isn't called Easter Weekend officially because the "separation of church and state" means it cannot be referred to that.  Later in the day I saw news footage reporting with horror that President Obama has not been to church since being in office.) and naturally because it's a public holiday the weather is predicted to be awful. 

That's ok though, because none of my intended activities for the weekend require fine weather.  So far I have planned an intensive program of:

• reading,
• crocheting,
• catching up on TV,
• making a fuss of the cats,
• playing video games. 

These tasks will be broken up by some serious napping, and I shall also be requiring Doc C to dig out the recipe for hot cross buns, so that I can snack appropriately.  But in the meantime, I think I need to go to bed and watch "Numb3rs" before having a good night's sleep. 

I've already turned my alarm off.

Then The TV Lied to Me, and Pretended It Was Funny.

I don't like April Fools Day.

True no one actually played any tricks on me (unless you count Nancy staring at the stairs in a manner that suggests she can see a ghost.  OHMYGOD! It's terrifying!  Ooh, biscuits...), however the possibility that they might was hanging there all day.  It's just that I haven't worked there long enough to know if there were any practical jokers in the office. This wasn therefore a slightly nerve wracking day for me because practical jokes aren't generally very funny, and I don't fake good natured laughter very well when I'm in actual fact really quite cross.

Not to mention that today is also the day that the media can not be trusted, which always makes me very uneasy.  I remember as a child one of my favourite kid's Saturday shows running a contest on April Fool's Day for a music player, which in retrospect was actually startlingly similar to an iPod Touch, and I was really excited by the technology, because even as a child I was super geeky.  Anyway the following week the pop group Bros were on, and they demonstrated that the music player was in fact a hoax, and then the presenters mocked the children who had entered the contest.  I think they did actually send them a prize, but it was something rubbish.  I clearly remember feeling really disappointed.

I suppose that was the first time that I understood that television can not always be trusted, which is a harsh lesson for any 8 year old.  It still hurts sometimes.

The Important Issues of the Day.

I wanted to really consider this before I weighed in with an opinion, but I think it's time to join the debate.

I loved Michelle's yellow outfit for the inauguration ceremony, I thought she glowed.  That shade of mustard is a great colour on her, I really liked the sparkle at the neckline and also the use of texture and layering.  A touch more tailoring wouldn't have hurt, but overall I thought it was a winner.

Now I personally would not have chosen the cream ballgown myself, because it had a hint of wedding dress to my eye, but she looked absolutely radiant and you cannot argue with that.  As Erin at a Dress A Day has taught me, it's important to wear clothes that make you happy and clearly that dress made Michelle happy.  Well either that or her husband having just been inaugurated as the 44th President.  W00T!  (Also Erin has written about Michelle's outfits too, and she has pictures of them too!  She's so organised!)

Doc C and I were talking about it afterwards, and I think it's safe to say that Michelle is the most stylish First Lady since Jackie Kennedy.  This may not be the most important element of the Obama administration, but it is still really quite exciting, you know, if you're shallow.

Inauguration Day.

I am watching the Inauguration on-line, via the BBC website, purely because I can't get any of the others to open I think they are totally overloaded with viewers.  As it is the sound is really good, but the pictures are timing out like mad.

Still it's pretty impressive, I can watch/listen to history being made at work, and blog about it at the same time.

*Update*  I worked out that if I used the pop out viewer that it streams a lot better, so I saw the whole inauguration and President Obama's first speech.  Hoorah!

Be Seeing You.

I was very sad to hear that Patrick McGoohan died yesterday.

Today I wore my Number 2 badge, which was purchased from the Portmeirion gift shop when we visited The Village a couple of years ago.  Why didn't I buy a Number 6 badge?  Well, it's always more fun being evil isn't it? And besides they had sold out of 6s.

Goodbye Bettie.

I knew this week was not a good one.  Bettie Page died last night.

It must be true because it's reported on the BBC news website.

Dr. Pepper's For All!

So Guns 'n Roses released their long awaited new album today.  In all honesty I can't say that this is an event that I would have paid that much attention to normally; however Dr. Pepper's promised to provide all of America (with the exception of Slash and Buckethead, because they are "estranged" from the group apparently) with a can of their delicious beverage if G'nR managed to actually release the album before the end of 2008.  I don't drink fizzy caffeinated soft drinks very often, but when I do my preference is for Dr. Peppers, so I am somewhat interested now.

Well the band did it, so Dr. Pepper's are honouring the promise, and by the way what the hell were the circumstances behind that one?  It's such an odd thing for them to say they would do in the first place, isn't it?  Why would they care?  And who said it?  And why?

Anyway to get the drink you have to register your name and address on their website within 24 hours of the album having been released, and they will send you a voucher. 

Except I can't register. 

I went to the website, and I clicked on the tiny link at the bottom that just said "Free Dr. Pepper", and up came a registration form.  So I filled it in and submitted, but I just got an error message.  I've tried three times now, it's very annoying.  Especially as the countdown clock tells me I only have 7 hours left in which to register!  Damn it!

Pro Love, Anti Hate.

We had a terrible time trying to find a parking space today because there is a big football game in town, but we managed to get to the library where the pro-gay marriage march was assembling in time for me to make a banner.  In the end I went with lots of red love hearts, partly inspired by the lovely necklace Jason sent to me as part of my birthday package (I also got Malteasers, cake decorations and a bag of assorted fabulous sequins!  All of it wrapped up in the most gorgeous paper!  Yay for birthday surprises!) I also wrapped a small hot pink feather boa around the handle, which helped to make it comfortable but was mainly because, hello, it was a hot pink feather boa!  That's my kind of protesting!

We marched in a circular route around the town which took about an hour and a half.  For the most part we got lots of smiles and thumbs up, with just one or two people expressing their disagreement with our views.  It was actually really quite fun!

It did start to rain towards the end, so I was glad to get home, which is when we discovered that Edith is pro gay marriage too.  She really loved my banner, and kept rubbing up against it.

Unfortunately she was so enthusiastic about the sign that she pushed it over on top of Nancy, who survived unscathed but presumably less keen on protest signs than our little fluffy radical.

We're Here, We're Straight, We Support Gay Marriage! Get Used To It!

Tomorrow Doc C and I are planning on joining the local protest against Prop 8, apparently there will be co-ordinated protests all over the country to demonstrate a national feeling of dismay that this bill passed.

We're not really sure what our banners will say, but Doc has suggested "Straight, Married and Unaffected" where as I am leaning towards "Breeders For Gay Marriage!", but I'm not sure either really captures what we are trying to say fully. 
It's somewhat like trying to work out what to engrave on the back of one's iPod, except a lot more socially responsible.

I Wish It Had Been NO on Prop 8.

As I'm going to be curled up on the sofa for the rest of the day I don't think I'll be posting a photo, so instead I'm linking to a video of Keith Olbermann's reaction to the passing of Proposition 8.  In case you weren't aware Prop 8 eliminates the rights for same-sex couple to marry, and I honestly believe that it is tragic that it passed.

It Went Blue!

North Carolina went blue on the little voting map!  Finally!  Hooray!

I know Obama would have been president without NC, but I still feel better about things now it's been called for the Democrats.  Yay!

Voting in North Carolina.

It's been over twenty four hours since the North Carolina polls closed, and the result hasn't been called yet.

The count was so close that it has to be recounted by hand several times, which sounds like no fun at all as well as being incredibly tedious.  And we are talking about 4, 232,615 votes here.  I don't envy the voting officials one bit.

Only Two More States To Go - Come on NC!

North Carolina still isn't decided?  I am so glad we decided not to stay up to wait for it, the State I'm actually in would be the one dragging it's heels sigh. 

Still the BBC is reporting the North Carolina results so far as Obama 2,101,986 and McCain 2,089,826, which means it's 49.8% to 49.6%, so I can see why it's still too close to call I suppose.

The Best Man Actually Did Win!

Hoorah!  We watched Senator McCain's speech concession speech, and then President Obama's acceptance speech.

President Obama has won by quite a large margin, but North Carolina hasn't been called yet.  How long is this going to take?  At least the county I live in went blue on the little map, that's something!  I don't think we will be staying up to watch the results for NC come in, but I'll probably be keeping my fingers crossed in my sleep.

Election Night. Freaking Finally.

In case you didn't know tonight is the Presidential election here in the USA.  That means after today they might just stop talking about it for eighteen months or so before it all starts again.  It's ridiculous!  How long do people campaign for in the UK?  It feels to me as though they just put out adverts the week before, but I'm sure that's just rose coloured spectacles because this has been so over the top.

We are having people over to our house, and have purchased champagne to celebrate if Obama wins, and Pabst Blue Ribbon to drown our sorrows in if McCain wins.

Doc C is making a pecan pie, and some pizzas.  I totally failed to make an elephant shaped pinata, but I have decattified the living room.  There are no food bowls, scratching posts, stray fur, or cat toys in sight, because they are in our bedroom with the cats.  We thought that would be less stressful for the felines; and as Nancy had to be forced into a pet carrier today to go to the vets, where she was given a steroid muscle injection, I think the less stress for her the better.  Plus she still looks terrible still, and I am vain on her behalf.

So this time tomorrow we will know who is the next President of the United States.  Let's all keep our fingers crossed.

Falling Back.

The clocks went back here last night, and the cats seem to have known that because they consistently wake me up at 8 on weekends and today was no exception.  Very clever cats.

I had to double check that the clocks had gone back, because we don't actually have a real clock in our house.  We just have clock displays attached to something else, such as the laptop, the video or my phone, and all of them had already updated themselves when I got up this morning.  It was actually quite disconcerting walking into the kitchen, because the stove says 9 and I had that split second moment of confusion before I worked out why.  This is precisely why I don't actually want everything to automatically reset itself, I like to do it so I know it's been done.  And besides I hate all these computerised things thinking they are cleverer than me, and doing things for me as if I couldn't possibly manage them all by myself. 

My computer at work did this very odd thing where it decided to set itself literally to Mountain Time, even though North Carolina is actually on Central Time; which meant it was showing the right time on my clock when it was thinking it was two hours behind.  Which shouldn't make any difference to anything right?  Wrong.  I use an outlook calendar to co-ordinate with my colleagues in the office, and they were all on Central Time; so my clever clever computer decided that my schedule was therefore two hours different to my colleagues' schedule.  This it reasoned was illogical, so it thoughtfully reset my entire calendar to be two hours earlier than the appointment times I had set for myself, without asking me, so I didn't know it had done that.  This meant that my 11 o'clock appointment got moved to 9 o'clock; I thought I was going dotty, and I scrambled to re-organise everything I'd set up for 11, only to have the person I was meeting with e-mail to say "9?  No, I can't be there until 11".  Ugh. 

Stupid computer, you may be clever but you have no common sense and now you've made me look scatty.  Thanks.  Thanks a lot.

Funny? Ha Ha?

Tonight Barack Obama will be the guest, via video link, on "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" at 11 (central).

I was trying to think of a British equivalent, but it appears that currently the only intersection between British comedy and politics is when the Prime Minister comments on "inappropriate  and unacceptable behaviour" by comedians who actually think prank phone calls to a 78 year old man are funny.

sigh.

And even worse the matted hair buffoon is starting to break America. So I have to keep explaining that yes he's popular, but no he's not what I would call the cream of current British comedy.

The Wire?

Following on from my excitement over actors from "The Wire"  visiting campus yesterday, I have been asking people on campus if they had known about it.  No one had heard about it before hand, and actually almost no one I spoke to had even heard of "The Wire" itself.  I spent a large portion of my day explaining it's utter genius to anyone who would stay still long enough to listen.

I did discover that actually there are seven cast members touring all over North Carolina at the moment, Chad Coleman (Dennis "Cutty" Wise), Deidre Lovejoy (Rhonda Pearlman), Jamie Hector (Marlo Stanfield), Clarke Peters (Detective Lester Freamon), Sonja Sohn (Detective Shakima "Kima" Greggs), Seth Gilliam (Sergeant Ellis Carver), and Gbenga Akinnagbe (Chris Partlow) have been attending rallies, visiting campuses and generally promoting Obama's campaign.

How fantastic is that?

Why Living in a Swing State is Great for Celeb Spotting!

This evening my department had an event for the students, so I stayed late and then headed over to the library to catch a film in the queer film series "Saving Face" (which is not the point of this post, so I'll just say here it was a really terrific romantic comedy and I enjoyed it very much.  It's out on DVD, so rent it now!).

It was snowing a bit, so I cut through the Student Union and as I was rushing along the corridor I saw a man walking the other way who looked exactly like Carver from "The Wire".

Which was because it was Seth Gilliam who played Carver in "The Wire".

Oh.  My.  God.

I actually stopped dead in my tracks and blurted out "I love your work!".  Bless his heart, Mr Gilliam stopped to shake my hand and talk to me, he was a very nice man!  When I asked what the hell he was doing in North Carolina he explained that he was here campaigning for Barack Obama; and that Gbenga Akinnagbe and Sonja Sohn who played Chris and Kima where here too.

And they were!  In a meeting room next to the bookshop!  I called Doc C and as soon as he answered I said "Carver,Chris&KimaFromTheWireAreInTheStudentUnion!!!"  "What?" "Carver, Chris & Kima from "The Wire" are in the student union!  Get over here NOW!"

Both Ms Sohn and Mr Akinnagbe were talking to students, and I didn't want to interrupt (after all they were there to talk to prospective voters, and I'm not a citizen so I can't vote), so I ran off to the screening, so I could tell Kim and Jill (they organised the film series) who are also big Wire fans.  It was one of the most surreal and most exciting celebrity spots ever!  It almost tops that time I saw David Beckham topless at Broadcasting House, but I wasn't wearing my glasses, so he was blurry! 

If only Doc C had been there too it would have been perfect, because he would have thought to say what a travesty it was the "The Wire" never won an Emmy.  Unfortunately by the time Doc got to the Student Union they had already left, so he is very jealous of me.  He says he's not letting me go anywhere with out him now, after all it's not just that I spotted three celebs in one go, but they were stars of one of the greatest television series of all time.  Which you can't argue with really.

Yes We Can Have A Party!

We are planning to have an Election Party on Tuesday 4th November, Doc C e-mailed some people about it yesterday and he's started to get RSVPs back.

Unexpectedly Doc also got a phone call from his brother, who is very excited about the election too.  In fact he's planning to fly from Boston to join us for just for the evening; because he thinks that it would be more interesting to be in N.C., which is being counted as a swing state in this election, rather than Massachusetts which is a strong hold for the Democrats.

So far we don't have a theme for the evening, other than nervous tension of course, but we are thinking about having an elephant pinata.  Well I'm thinking about having a pinata, and trying to talk the Doc into it, mainly because we have the perfect stair case to hang one from, and I've never destroyed one before.  They look like fun to me!

Compelling and Delicious Data.

I know there have been a lot of polls indicating that Obama is currently in the lead against McCain, but you know most of these polls are conducted via telephone and one of the problems with that is that telephone polling companies are not allowed to use machines to dial mobile phones so they are mainly calling landlines.  As I'm sure you know many people in their thirties and under are no longer bothering to have landlines installed, so there is an inherent flaw in these polls.

However, out favourite local bakery has started to conduct some research of their own.

The Democratic's party symbol is the Donkey, the Republican's is the Elephant, I have no idea why and I am not going to wikipedia it right now.  The bakery made sugar cookies in the shape of elephants and donkeys and sprinkled them with appropriately coloured sugar.  They then sold the cookies, and kept a record of how many of each were sold.

Need I point out that the donkeys are almost gone, whilst there are three piles left of the elephants?  If that wasn't indication enough, please note that the blackboard tally (Which is annoyingly slightly blurred, I'm sorry) indicates quite clearly where the local lovers of fine baked goods stand on this issue.  I think you'll agree that that method of data collection is absolutely flawless.

Obama '08.  Yes We Can Have Cookies.

Be Like Others (2008)

This evening we went to see a documentary called "Be Like Others " which was being screened as part of the University's Queer Film series.  "Be Like Others" is about the strange situation in Iran which means that whilst it is illegal (on pain of death) to be homosexual, the government will happily fund sex change operations; because the Ayatollah Khomeini wrote a fatwa pronouncing trans-sexuality legal and allowing for sex-change operations, since nothing in the Koran specifically forbids the surgery.

It was a really interesting film, and raised some important questions about the way gender and sexuality are constrained by society, or at least that's what societal norms would prefer.  The patients actually need to carry official permission saying that they are allowed to dress as women prior to their re-assignment surgery.

It wasn't a light film by any means and it was heart breaking to see one of the patients lose everything and be forced into prostitution to survive having been ostracized by her family after the surgery.  On the other hand one mother was so delighted to have traded in a son for the daughter she'd always wanted, that she was clearly going to be the mother-in-law from hell.

I don't know how easy it would be to see this film, but if you see it's coming to a film festival near you I would say try and see it.  It's only 75 minutes long, and it's a really interesting subject.

If the Presidential Debate Ends in a Walk Off, I will be KICKING Myself.

So the second presidential debate is on this evening, at the same time as the "Project Runway" season five finale. 
Obviously I'm going to be watching "Project Runway", and I thought I may as well live blog it!

If you haven't been watching the show and you want to play along at home you can go to the show's website here, or the Fug Girls attended the Bryan Park show and actually handicapped the contestants in New York Magazine.  They have pictures of the runway show, bless their coal black hearts.

If you'd rather follow the debate, may I direct you to Defective Yeti?  Matthew Baldwin is live blogging this debate, and I can virtually guarantee you will find him immensely entertaining.

• 9.00 - I missed the first few seconds of the "Previously..." montage, but that's ok I'm up to speed.
• 9.03 - Tim Gunn's first appearance!  Hoorah!  Swiftly followed by Kenley-Disagrees-With-Tim shock.
• 9.17 - A model brought her puppy to a fitting and cleaned up the inevitable poop whilst wearing Leanne's evening gown.  It seemed a bit weirdly staged really.
• 9.20 - I would love to go accessory shopping with Korto, she has a great eye for a striking piece.
• 9.21 - Michelle Trachtenburg alert!
• 9.26 - Jennifer Lopez pulled out of judging the finale because of a foot injury.  When I first heard that I thought it was a joke, but, no, it's true.  Anyway Tim is doing it instead.  Kenley made a comment about how she should have worked on her attitude.  Umm, yeah, that might have been good.  Kenley starts the show.
• 9.28 - Shot of Rachel Zoe in the audience.  Nice product placement there Bravo!
• 9.34 - Korto's collection is a lot stronger with her new dresses.  Well played!
• 9.35 - Index tags!  That's what Leanne's collection reminds me of!  In a good way!
• 9.42 - Judging panel.  Let's hope Michael and Nina have been working out their bitchy muscles in preparation.
• 9.47 - Korto kicks off the crying for this evening with a few discreet tears, Leanne was completely self-possessed and under control but Kenley actually blubbered.
• 9.56 - Kenley's out. And crying again, and complaining about how unfair everything is.  Poor baby.
• 9.57 - Leanne wins Season Five!  And a hybrid car!  And Leanne's model wins her own magazine spread too, which is nice.
• 9.58 - Korto is the runner up, but we already know that she won the fan's favourite so she'll be getting $10 000 anyway and her little girl is super cute, so Korto's doing pretty well too.
• 9.59 - Is that it?  I feel like that was a bit of an anti-climax really.

Ok, well that's all for Alien Spouse's live coverage for tonight, but in real life I will now be watching "Top Design" with India Hicks.  I love Bravo...

The Current Economic Situation, And How It Is Effected By Hairballs.

I am watching the presidential debate, whilst playing with the cats.  It's surprisingly pretty similar, but I bet things would liven up if you dumped some cat nip on McCain and Obama.  Now that would be a debate worth watching!

By the way, Defective Yeti has live blogged the debates (and, indeed, is right now), and even if you haven't seen the debates they are really funny and insightful posts.

Antiques, Cat Training and Petrol Shortages.

Doc C was teaching this afternoon, and this morning he had a meeting so Jason and I went into town with him when he went to work and I showed Jason around the local antique shops, restaurants (we covered one for breakfast, one for lunch and a bakery for a sampler selection of their finest cookies) and the university campus.

We also picked up the post from our post office box and the CitiKitty I ordered last week arrived today.  All we need now is a cat or two, and I will be able to report back on whether or not it is indeed possible to train a cat to use a toilet.  Oh, let's hope!

We were planning to go to Asheville on Saturday, but it turns out that the petrol shortages that have been effecting other towns in America has finally reached our town; so we may have to be more careful about the distances we're going to drive over the next few days before we go to Charlotte airport.  Otherwise Jason may be here for considerably longer than he had anticipated, which would honestly suit me perfectly well!

Flags.

 

Today the Quad at the center of the university campus was covered with hundreds of miniature American flags.

Pause.

I have recently started reading a blog called Forty Three Folders, and they had a very interesting post today on why on-line social networking could do with a pause button.  You can read that post here, and I think it's very interesting.

Networking on-line and electronic communication is becoming so ubiquitous, that you can join Face Book support groups for pretty much anything, and sign up to be texted with the latest news on presidential candidates.  With over 175,000 new blogs being created every day, there is now even an on-line magazine from Typepad to help blog readers get an overview of what is going on out there on the net.

It made me think about how I approach my on-line presence, and indeed blogging.  I post here every day, and I think, necessarily, the blog posts I write have peaks and troughs of success.  So sometimes I'm very happy with my posts and I think they work and sometimes I'm just convinced that the entire internet can hear the bottom of that barrel being scraped. 

I still want to stick to posting every day, and that is because I want to get into the habit of writing something every single day and I also want to post pictures because I want to observe where I am every single day.

Copyright: Don't Mess With It Kids!

I knew it was coming, and we did get a full six months warning, but it's still a sad sad day.

"Scrabulous is disabled for US and Canadian users until further notice."

And right when I was in the middle of a game with Danny, with decent letters on the rack and everything!   I mean it becomes all too obvious that this is just a ploy to stop me beating him for once.  It's all that nefarious Birchall, I tell you.

On the other hand Jonny thoroughly trounced me this week and April was clearly squaring up to give me a good beating too, so maybe it's not all bad.  Plus my phone has a Scrabble application on it that is actually licensed from Hasbro, so at least that's not going to disappear any time soon.

The question now is what on earth am I going to use Facebook for?  I don't want to go back to being one of those annoying people whose vampire application keeps biting their friends.  I know that there are two official Scrabble applications on Facebook, but one is for the US and Canada whilst the other is for the rest of the world.  This clearly reflects the copyright situation, but it annoyingly means that I can't play a match against any of my friends in the UK anymore and I loved doing that.  And anyway, the US one has technical issues and won't load.

Oh, and, to keep in the spirit of the thing, this photo was half-inched from the BBC news website a few weeks back, and shows the sixtieth anniversary celebrations for Scrabble in Trafalgar Square.  I was sorry to have missed that particular event, I would have loved a photo of me next to a giant J tile.  sigh.

Norwich in the News.

It's always good to see my home town in the news.

Even if it does lead to the inevitable question:  How can someone have worn a bra for five hours without noticing they weren't, um, alone in there?

Heinz Advert

I cannot believe that Heinz has capitulated to a couple of hundred complaints about this advert and removed it.

Personally I just don't see what is so offensive about ham sandwiches, and I'm a vegetarian.

What?  It was the kiss?  Nope, I still don't see why that's offensive.

Dear Diary...

I was reading on the BBC News website a report which included a graph showing people's happiness levels through out their life times.  The graph is, conveniently enough, smile-shaped; it begins at a high point when people were in their teens, curves downwards to a low point indicating that most people were at their most miserable at around forty, and then curves back up as people became steadily happier again.

I have only one question: What the hell kind of teenagers were they interviewing for this?  Seriously, aren't teenagers supposed to be lurking in their darkened bedrooms listening to dirge-like music and writing lots of whiny entries in their diaries about how nobody understands them and life is totally unfair.

I know I did, very briefly.

To be honest I was always terrible at diary keeping, because I only ever seemed to actually write an entry when I was feeling mopey; and I never really did anything, so they were pretty dull too.  I think I mainly kept a diary as an excuse to buy the note books, because I covet lovely fresh notepads so much that I would otherwise just buy them and never do anything with them for fear of spoiling them**.  Don't worry though, you can rest assured that there will be no Cringe type shenanigans here, because I destroyed my teenage diaries a few years ago when I was about to move house and couldn't bear to pack them.  I do not regret doing so for a moment, they were awfully self-indulgent records of events that I realised later I really had no need to be reminded of.  It's sort of a pity there wasn't someway I could have just bleached out all the writing and kept the notebooks, but in the end I had to go with old fashioned ripping out of pages and I think there was also some burning of particularly awful bits.

Personally I think my happiness graph would be pretty level, and I would even say it's probably improved as I've grown older and understood myself better.  I'm much clearer these days about what I consider fun, and so that means I actually have more fun then I used to.  I definitely know I would not want to be a teenager again. 

The mere thought...

shudder.

**I've tried to ween myself off buying blank note books, but if I see a particularly nice one and I can justify it somehow, then it's mine.  The last note book I bought was a tiny Sara Fanelli note pad from the Tate Britain gift shop.  I'd long since stopped keeping a diary, so what was the excuse for buying this one?  Well I'd just read one of those books about personal finance that recommend you note down everything you spend to keep track of where all your money actually went, so that way you could budget more effectively.  it's a very sensible idea, but I really should have known that my money-out ledger would end up reading:

1. This note pad: 1 pound 50 pence 
2. No Further Entries

Actually I don't think that's true, I think the second entry would have been a cup of tea and a slice of cake in the Tate Britain tea room, don't you?  That sounds much more likely to me.  Point being though, that I didn't keep track of my spending for very long and I don't know where that note pad is right now.  Pity; it was super cute, with a little bit of red elastic to keep it closed, it was a really good little note pad.

The Ongoing Credit Card Saga.

So you know how I've been here since October right?  And I've got everything pretty much sorted out (apart from that whole full time employment thing, but that is a subject for a whole other post!), with the exception of my last remaining UK credit card.

The problem was that two months ago my credit card company refused to accept my US debit card as a means of payment.  All of the alternative methods of paying the bill that they suggested (after much badgering from me, I may add) automatically incurred the ridiculously high banking fees that are applied to international banking, and would actually more than double my monthly payments.  As a short term solution that might be fine if you are rolling in cash, but if you are a mere mortal it's completely unacceptable.  I contacted their special elite branch of customer services for a better solution.

Last night I got two letters from my credit card company.

One (addressed to my married name) was my latest bill, which categorically stated it had to be paid by the seventh of July, or there would be Consequences because I would then have missed three payment dates.

The other (addressed to my maiden name) was from customer services. The letter said they apologised for how long this was taking, that they appreciated my patience and that they would get back to me by the seventh of July with an answer.

Hmmm.

Do you see the problem there?  I hate to be paranoid, but that's just such a convenient coincidence of dates, isn't it?  It almost seems like they want me to not be able to pay them on time.

It's a damn good thing that I'd already paid my bill really.

It turns out we hadn't closed our joint bank account when we left the UK, which I honestly thought we had, so that meant I could go on-line to use Paypal to transfer money into that account, and then pay the credit card bill with my UK debit card.  Yes Paypal do charge a fee, but it's nowhere near as high and it's not the banks getting it, which has become a point of principle to me.  I'll pay what I owe, and no more!

You know when I was getting ready to move over here, it simply never occurred to me that one of the most enduringly frustrating aspects of the whole thing would be trying to pay my credit card bills.

Friday Night Pride.

Last night we went to the opening night music festival of Pride, and our friend Crys was the opening act.  It was great to see her play live, and we really enjoyed her set.

It was a really nice evening, and the event was on the patio of one of the larger local hotels, so we were able to sit and enjoy the dusk whilst we listened to the bands.  It was really relaxed, there was even someone's pet Alsatian roaming around, meeting everyone and keeping an eye on the perimeter.  True, there was a policeman on duty hanging around the ticket desk, and it has to be said he didn't look very comfortable, but it must have proved to be one of the easiest days of work he'd ever had.

You can't really see it in this photo, but on the back of my hand is a a very faint purple smiley face stamp.  It was to indicate that I had shown my state ID and had therefore proved I was old enough to drink.  Duly stamped, I drank one bottle of Newkey Brown.

I was particularly impressed with the flier, which I think looks great, and the venue had co-ordinated multi-coloured banners and even tea-light holders with the silhouettes on, so it felt very cohesive and put together.

Tonight there is a dance, which we are also planning to go to.  I'm really looking forward to the opportunity to get totally over-dressed.  After all, if you can't pile on the jewelry for Pride, when can you?

 

Alien Spouse Supports Gay Pride!

This weekend is Pride, and it will be our first Pride in North Carolina.  Bearing in mind last year we were working in Leicester Square, right behind the main stage and therefore utterly surrounded by the fabulousness that is London Pride, it's going to be very interesting to see how they do things round here.

There seems to be a lot going on and we are planning to attend some, but probably not all of the events.  There are quite a few that our friend Crys will be playing at, and we haven't heard her perform before, so we definitely want to catch that.

Our attendance will be to show our support for the local Gay community, naturally, but I really wish that I'd thought far enough ahead to have ordered myself a Pink Jack Flag in time.  Ah well, next year!

The Sound of the Devil Returning a Soul Perhaps?

Doc C and I were watching the television coverage of Senator Hillary Clinton give her concession speech, and, at the very moment she said that she was now throwing her support behind Senator Obama, there was a loud peel of thunder out of a clear blue sky.

I'm not sure what that means, but it seemed portentous.

American Democracy - It Goes On and On and On...

As I understand it Barack Obama has now achieved the necessary number of delegates, 2118 (in fact he got 2132), but he won't be the actual official Democrat Presidential Nominee until he receives the party mandate at the party conference on the 28th of August.

Is it just me, or is this whole thing really starting to drag now?

The Great Teacake Payback.

I love this news story about the UK treasury having to repay three and a half million pounds worth of VAT on M&S chocolate teacakes because they were wrongly classified as a biscuit in 1994.

I distinctly remember having bought M&S chocolate teacakes about five years ago, how much do you think I'll be getting back and will I need to provide receipt?

Welcome Home Dr A!

We went out to dinner with friends tonight, mainly to welcome back one of Doc C's colleagues from a trip to China.  He'd taken a party of students there to study for a couple of weeks, and the group was touring a temple about sixty miles away from the earthquake's epicenter when it hit.

Fortunately no one in his group was injured, but they still had to deal with quite a lot of completely unforeseen problems before they could get home.  It sounds like a total nightmare, but again everyone survived it all and got back to the USA in one piece.

Of course once back in the country of their birth the students decided this was an excellent time to re-assert their independence and simply scattered.  This subsequently caused two of the kids to somehow miss the internal connecting flight from Georgia to North Carolina, but I'd still call that a 99.9% success rate for the trip over all.

California: Now Slightly Less Unconstitutional!

Yay for California's Supreme Court for ruling that the state law banning Gay marriages was unconstitutional!  I can't believe that law was passed in 2000, it seems so draconian to me.

And let me take this opportunity to clearly state that Alien Spouse supports Gay Spouses everywhere!

Seriously? The One with the White Blonde Bowl-cut?

Oh Dear God!

How the hell did Boris Johnson get elected as Mayor of London?  The man is a buffoon.  I'm sort of glad I've spent nearly a whole week in blissful ignorance of this fact.

Welcome Bill Clinton

So the sign I posted yesterday had been changed when I walked passed it this morning.  Instead of a non-existent website, it's now a welcome message to Bill Clinton.

He visited our town on the campaign trail for Hillary, and as he was speaking on campus the Doc went to hear him talk.  Doc C started queueing at 2pm, and was allowed into the gym where the talk was being given at 4pm.  It was standing room only, and they had to set up speakers outside for all the people who had queued for two hours only to find there was no space in the hall.

Apparently, when the warm-up lady was trying to get the crowd all excited about Clinton's talk, she yelled "And you know who's going to be the next president?" and with one voice the crowd roared back "OBAMA!". Probably not the response she was hoping for, but at least it's the right party.

I'd chosen not to go to the talk, but on the walk home Doc noticed three matching cars with dark windows slowly rolling along in the rush hour traffic.  He made a joke about the secret service, and then we both looked over to see Bill himself in the back of the next car with an enormous cigar on the go.  I noticed the car behind that was also full of secret service suits, and the one in the front passenger seat was definitely keeping an eye on us over the top of his mirrored shades.  As the only pedestrians we were probably highly suspicious.

It was all very surreal.

Fortunately Bill's route happened to take him right passed this sign, I hope he saw it.

Ashes to Ashes (But no Gene Hunt in sight)

The Doc just ran into my office to tell me that our Monday night pub has burnt down.

Apparently there was a band playing last night, they had an electrical problem which set fire to the stage and then that fire spread to burn out the whole bar.

Gah.  That is terrible news, not least because it's the second of my favourite restaurants in town to close since I've arrived. 

I am running out of places to eat here!

Data Entry for Obama.

After work today I went to the local Obama campaign office to help out for a couple of hours.  I had called ahead earlier, but the girl I spoke to wasn't there and clearly hadn't told anyone I was coming, so it took a few minutes for them to decide what to do with me.

Then they gave me a stack of forms and sat me down at a computer to do data entry.  I entered the details of about 50 people, and also put aside any forms where people had forgotten to write there birth date or had done something weird with the addresses.  Each problem form also had a little pink post it note attached explaining why I deemed it unacceptable.

My favourite mistake was when people managed to fill in their surnames twice in the name boxes, which made it look as though it was also their first name.  This is America so I would have accepted that as a possibility, if it wasn't for the fact that their signature clearly indicated a totally different name.  Two separate people managed to do that, which is a worry.

Then Doc C came to pick me up, which was good because out of nowhere I suddenly felt a bit queasy and light headed.  I knew data entry didn't agree with me.

I felt a lot better as soon as I got home.

Voter Registration Day.

This afternoon we went to the local mall to help register voters, with our friends Randy and Jasmin.  We were there for an hour.  The Doc and I both got two voters each in that time.

I wore my Union Jack T-Shirt to help prepare people for my accent, and we all had Obama stickers on too.

We had clipboards with registration forms and just had to say "Hi! Are you registered to vote in this county?" with a big cheesy smile.  For the most part people said they were registered, or that they didn't live in this county which was fine.  I did find it odd that several people said "No, Thank you!" in answer to that question.

"No, Thank you" to what?  Your right to vote?  Most of the people who said this were women, which is perhaps not surprising, but have they seriously not heard of the Suffragettes?  Those women fought hard, and some even died, to get us this right, we should exercise it at every opportunity! 

Of course I currently cannot vote because I am a resident alien and therefore not a citizen of the United States, but if I could I so would.

Alien Spouse Supports Barack Obama.

After work yesterday we went with Randy and Jasmin to attend a meeting of Obama supporters, and sign up to help with voter registration this weekend. 

We thought there would only be a few people.  Evidently the organisers thought there would only be a few people.

There were many people in quite a small space.

Then there were speeches, which were interesting and inspiring (Our Mayor seems nice, by the way), but by half way through the third one I was thinking "Keep it together Jen!  You can breathe!  The table you're jammed up against looks sturdy, you won't break it if you faint, so that's fine! Also it's fine if these nice people want to stand right on top of you, and you have no space to move! Yes, it's getting very warm in here, but you can see the door still!  Well. Ok, you could see the door, but you know it's just behind those people. Eeeeeeeehhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Yeah, I'm not great with crowds.

So when some other people left I told the Doc I'd wait outside, and stood in the rain (under my ugly kitten umbrella), until the crowd had thinned out.

Then I went back in, and signed up to help with voter registration for an hour on Saturday.

Obama '08.  Yes We Can!

Because Sticking It to Authority Sometimes Involves Being That Authority.

Today a campus peace group organised a walk out to protest against the war for the fifth anniversary.  It happened to be scheduled for right in the middle of Doc's lecture.

He decided he wouldn't walk out himself, because he didn't feel he should impose his political views on the class.  I told him he definitely should not walk out, because then the kids couldn't walk out on him.  He said he didn't mind if they protested against the war, and in fact he hoped many of them would.

I explained that wasn't what I meant.  The point I was making was that if he joined the demonstration, then those students who did walk out would not have the thrill of rebelling against an authority figure.

"Oh I see," said The Doc "I'm The Man!"