I used to be vegetarian, but those days are long gone. The BBQ’s back in action in our back garden, we brought it out of hibernation when bert and his dad, David, arrived last saturday. Tasty. I’m going to use Flickr to host my pictures for a while and talking of which, I have one more Pro account to give away. I signed up before they got taken over by Yahoo and slashed their prices and increased their services, so they’re giving me 2 free accounts. I’ve offered one to me Dad, still waiting for him to accept. The other’s for the next guest mappee to add themself. Don’t forget to include your email address. If you’re already on there, just email me asking nicely. First come, first served.

Fruitful, sleepy day today. Am now 95% officially a US permanent resident, just have to wait for me green card to arrive. They stamped me passport in the meantime. It’s a much more efficient system now, instead of queuing up at 5am and hoping to get in, they’ve got an automated online appt system. I was in and out within 15 minutes. It would have been less but I had to go back to the car to leave my PDA there cos it can take photos which could be disastrous for homeland security apparently.

anyroad, below is a 9.5 second file of Monday evening in Ciao bella with Bert, his Dad, Sita and me. In the clip it’s just bert looking suspicious then the camera panning up to see the ring of redwoods which the outside dining area’s in. It’s a bit dark and as ever, dial up users may feel a little dissappointed. Bert and co headed south yesterday, you may see them keeping well within the speed limit in one of the following places in the next few days: Monterey, Big Sur, Hearst Castle, Santa Barbara, L.A., Palm Springs, Las Vegas. It was grand to see them, I just wish I could have taken some time of work to spend relaxing with them. But that will come soon. He blogged cryptically…

CiaoBellawithBertandRedwoods.asf (585k file) I think ASF is fairly universally recognised. Comment me if not. Cheers- gwyn

normal blogging will be resumed shortly…
quick stream of consciousness from last Wed to today… meetings… reports… fielding phone calls… reporters cancelling… final preps for social… dog… sita in miami… sita back… dog… social event… tables… bert and dad arrive… barby in the back garden… party round gerwin’s… breakfast on the wharf… rehearsal for queer youth awards… played guitar… asparagus… atticus… anarchist… ciao bella… “‘china” the cat… car hire… workworkwork… pope… dentist… budgets… next week planning… dr. bert’s friend… Red? Tomorrow… berkeley… first 5… scrabble… thurs… INS/Dept of homeland nonsense… passport photos… announcements at work… ian’n’yuri’n’william… on sunday he rested or had a stab at it… monday… training… tues -> berkeley… trianing… training… training. dentist again. 3 x fillings, 1 x crown replacement.

Got home, got pounced on by the mutt, tied him to the front door so he could watch me mow the lawn with la poderosa. and our neighbour comes over to tell me atticus escaped from the back garden today and she’d had to pick him up off the street and put him back in. He got out through the side door somehow. So i mowed her lawn’n’all to return the favour. then walked the little bugger. now he’s still full of beans and acting up, i’m knackered and i’ve got to pull together a presentation for tomorrow morning and some other stuff too… jayziz.

Sita had a nice flight to Miami. She’ll be presenting stuff too tomorrow, in front of 400 or so people all ravenous for hot sociological debate. I’ve wished her well by phone which is just as well as it costs 10 bucks for wifi in her hotel and she’ll not be reading this.
anywell, back to the grind. maybe just one strongbad first…

I’ve been working since 8:30 this morning, and things keep piling up. It’s 5.45 i’m still at work and have tons to do. Hope the dog’s not being too loud in the back garden, he gets well narky if he hasn’t dragged us on a walk. I’m going to have to finish this at home… Just had to vent somewhere.

I’ll be voting by proxy… (don’t forget, mum). Didn’t think UKIP would come before Labour, mind…

Your expected outcome:

Liberal Democrat

Your actual outcome:

Labour -17
Conservative -39
	Liberal Democrat 64
UK Independence Party -2
	Green 33

You should vote: Liberal Democrat

The LibDems take a strong stand against tax cuts and a strong one in favour of public services: they would make long-term residential care for the elderly free across the UK, and scrap university tuition fees. They are in favour of a ban on smoking in public places, but would relax laws on cannabis. They propose to change vehicle taxation to be based on usage rather than ownership.

Take the test at Who Should You Vote For

Hopefully this is a static link… Nicky Wire out of the Manics gets awarded his degree from Swansea at last. He was too busy supporting the Levellers the first time around. I remember my graduation from Swansea well. Sita blew the electricity to the house we were sharing with the hair drier. Mum and Dad came up from Zummerzet. I had to wear a tie and a plus-size mortarboad and gown thing. Me hair was still shortish. Half the ceremony was in Welsh. A harpist harped. People clapped continuously for 50 minutes or so. And I couldn’t get out of there quickly enough. Then we all went to the Cricketer’s/Firkin pub for a quick meal right after. And I think I was in the middle of a TEFL course too and planning the trip to Sevilla. Was it six years ago? Hey ho, when I said remembered it “well” a few lines backs, that’s open to interpretation.

Went to town today and bought Rilo Kiley CD and the March issue of Q. I’m mp3ifying RK now to listen to while walking the beastie. Q’s definitely gone downhill of late, though; these days I read it and think I could do better. And I don’t have the highest opinion of my own writing skills. I don’t reckon it’s just cos i’m older and not in touch with what the kids are listening to. Q always used to be for old people anyway. Luckily us old people have got Word magazine which is marvellous, has some fine CDs on the cover and many decent articles. Seems like a lot of Select’s writers have ended up there now too. I might have to change my 5 star review of Q on Amazon.

Tanya and Sudarat came round for scrabble and black books last night. Well they didn’t know about the black books part when asked over, but I foisted it on them. bless’em, i didn’t fancy another friday night on me own. Sudarat’s just back from screening her film in a New York arts cinema and Tanya’s been extremely under the weather for nigh on 4 wks and is just coming out of the worst of it. Merci mucho pour la company. All that wound down around midnight and i started watching The Goodies but fell asleep a couple of minutes into the opening credits. Anyroad, not a great night’s sleep all in all so I’m going to try and get another nap in now (it’s half seven am).
and if you live in the states, this google satellite thingis fantastic. put your address in, zoom in, drag it round. magic. And if you’re looking to buy/rent a house in San Francisco or anywhere Craigslist is used, this is an impressive combination of google maps and the rent listings, with pictures and everything. That’s the 21st century for you…

Click here if you have a fastish PC, decent graphics card and connection too… to watch this blog get bombed, lasered and ravaged by dinosaurs. Back soon…

Oregon, this week… Florida next… San Diego last. It’s got to stop if only so the dog can live in a stable home environment. I came back today and he was staring at his food bowl by the door. Looks like the ants were keeping him entertained for a bit. Thanks ants.
Thants.
Anyroad, off for walkies presently… wish we hadn’t sold our treadmill…

Click away for the kind of quality news coverage we’ve come to expect from the Taunton Gazette… EDIT: I checked the link and they’d changed it from a story about a ghost haunting a Wellington couple to a tragic one about a baby dying. Really sorry about that. I thought the link was static.

Meanwhile in the London Standard… it’s fun all the way too of a different kind…

Just came back from a nice moonlit walk along the beach with young sita and the mutt. Well happy about the time change even though I desperately needed that extra hour last sunday. I’ve also just added a few random photos to my Flickr account to try out the upload program. Which you’re invited to browse through…

Comment spammers have finally found this blog. I new the day would come. I might have to move blogspace to somewhere more secure. I’d been fighting an attack from Online Texas Hold’em Poker for a while but I’ll keep blocking the buggers’ IP addresses for now and hope for the best. The chances are that won’t work for too long though since they’re probably using zombie computers to do it… damn you 777 casino dot net and all your mouth-breathing ilk. grrrr. argh.

I’m gradually getting through translating the nominations for the QYLAs. I’m a bit out of practice and it’s taking forever. Shall prob’ly end up finalising them on the lappy in a coffee shop this evening. Anyroad, i was about to take the dog our for a walk and was looking for radio 4 mp3s on t’net and ended up finding this site for americans thinking about a visit to blighty. It amused me for a minute or two anyway… time to load up the Zire with ‘I’m sorry I haven’t a clue’ from 1995. Desperate times, desperate programmes. Wish I had more of those Jon Ronson things…

The 9 o’clock showing was sold out so I had to wait till the 10:20 one, so I managed a swift pint of coffee before queuing up outside the cinema. Fantastic film, review probably coming sometime in July when I get a chance… saw the trailer for Hitchiker’s Guide, which I’m not looking forward to as much as I expected. I read somewhere recently that the golden age for science-fiction is 14… anyroad I finally got home at 1am, with the dog barking up a storm, naturally, and realised that what with the 8 hour time difference and all that it wouldn’t be a bad time to reestablish contact with me folks who’ve been trying to catch me in all week. Anyroad, had a lovely chat, then fed and watered the menagerie. Obsessively checked the stats on me website before bed (one from the rasterbator was a novelty). And am blogging a bit now because the coffee’s still swilling around me system. I’m picking young sita up from SJO tomorrow morning so I need to get a bit of kip in though I might end up finishing Zadie Smith’s White Teeth tonight at this rate. I’ll read this back tomorrow afternoon and make any necasery edits… Happy weekend folks

Y le echo mucho de menos. The schipperke got two walks today. I spoil him. I’ve been up since 5am and am a little emotionally fragile. Obviously the best time to go out and watch Sin City on my own. It’s just like the good old days in The fortress of solitude Hadley Mall. I’ll be the one at the back of the cinema whimpering…

On the same day sita gets name checked in Amy’s blog I discover Jesse’s a nascent blogger too. Which means I have another bookmark in my Firefox ‘Peeps with stuff to say’ folder to check on about 8 times a day. At least one the sites has usually been updated by then. Others in the ‘check-every-2-or-3-hours’ folder include…

A daily dose of imagery Arty Photo blog from Toronto
Boing Boing Interesting links aplenty
My boyfriend is a twat Sarky rants from Brit in Belgium.
Med Rib Blog Annelise lives in Rugby and takes care of kiddies. What’s not to like?
Sighclub 2nd degree of separation from Amy, Kathy + others…
Flash’s journal I’ve known this woman on and off for nigh on 15 years and learn more every day…
This Is Chris Great film reviews, essays and enthusiastic posting.
AdRants.com The world of advertising actually has its moments.

There’s another folder for checking on less often, but that’s quite enough for one day…

Sita came home with an 6gig IPod mini yesterday, which she let me take for a test run today. She’s been mp3ifying all manner of CDs I never knew we had. The ‘mug me’ white headphones are really comfortable and sound great. I might have to invest in something similar to plug into me zire. I’m listening to Jon Ronson’s series from radio 4, which is a Anglo version of This American Life. You can download MP3s from his site. Jon’s been on TAL a couple of time reading extracts from Them. So no coincidence there. Anyroad, that’s plenty to be getting on with for today.

Click for bigger

On my list of things to do: Make one of these here trompe yer eye screensavers…
And get back to stuart about his novel.

On the plus side, it went smoothly enough at the tax place- half an hour, in and out… On the down or “delta” side, as we say in Santa Cruz non-profit circles, we owe more than a grand to the US government to spend on evil. The bloke was trying to get us to put money in IRAs or somesuch, which strikes me as a really bad acronym to use to encourage people to save. How’s about putting your earnings in a PLO or an ETA? Any takers? Thought not… Ah well. Feel strangely vindicated, I expected the worst and it happened. I always feel vaguely apprehensive when we get refunded money. So it’s all good. Anyroad, Liz & Mya are round and we’re going to watch Firefly, Joss Whedon’s sci-fi thing. Lovely.