Britney Spears

I just read a headline that said "Britney not allowed to keep kids!" Is that really a headline or just hews outlet assuring us that the world hasn't quite gone to hell in a handbasket. They should get some psychologist to do a Longitudinal study on kids of messed up celebrities and how those kids turn out. They could include Britney Spears, the little guy ummm what is his name... Tom Cruise. I'm not going to sit her and list the different kids you could include because Ithink you get the point.

A few comments on some comments made by loyal readers... Dave the Cliff Claven comment was very funny and confirmation as to why I have been using the white socks to dust. Diane yes I do a lot of running (although not recently), but I have put the 1960's high top socks (similar to the ones my mother bought me) and the crotch hugger jogging shorts back in my fathers drawer in Winnipeg.

Another observation... for all the talk of David Beckham and in the media did youk now that I have only once seen photos of his kids and his relationship with his wife appears to be stable aka they have good nannies, but maybe those kids could also be included in the study. Beckham seems the most normal of the bunch and the most likely to have normal kids.

You know I really want to follow up the Christmas Invitation entry with something as funny, but there isn't really anything funny to talk about. I had a really good time. I was expecting to be there for 3 or 4 hours... I didn't end up leaving until about 9 pm. I'm sure I oveerstayed my welcome and yes i had troo much to drink, but Lisa's family was great. Her husband and sons were terrific compnay and it made for a very enjoyable Christmas Day.

I seem to have a new vigor for writing in the blog. I wil lcontinue this throughout the New Year. However, I will be in New Zealand for a few weeks so I won't post until mid January most likely. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all.

Love,
D

Here is the details for my Christmas lunch with my interpretations in red

This is the e-mail sent to me about the Christmas lunch I will be attending... the coles notes verion is in red

Hi Danny,

I'm fine, and I have a wonderful time moaning about the humid weather.
(I'm fine, but I haven't finished my Christmas shopping, I have to get prepared to cook a dinner for you, my family and all your lazy asses and its 40 fricking degrees outside and I have boob sweat)
Details: we have a traditional vaguely mixed English and Australian Christmas lunch. This year we'll be having roast pork, roast lamb and a cold ham, with traditional apple sauce, gravies, roast veggies etc. We also do a brandy plum pudding with custard, fruit mince pies etc and a side dessert of something else for the non pudding eaters (eg my sons aren't big on it).
(We eat like Kings, I cook like a slave and yet my sons still can't manage to choke back the damn pudding that my needy Husband and mother insists on)
Let me know if any of this is a dietary problem , no probs if it is...can always do something additional for you.
(Your bandwagoning sorry ass better like whatever it is I decide to make)
As good Aussies, we are also red and white wine (and the men are also beer drinkers. We also ensure there are plenty of non alcoholic drinks around for eg me during the cooking!
(The only way you, me, my family gets through this most aggravating time is to get drunk as skunks, so you better bring some because I'm not sharing any of my magic potion)
Best time to arrive is 12.30. We tend to get straight into pre lunch drinks and nibbles and gift unwrapping immediately before Jasmine explodes with anticipation.
(By 10am I will have needed a strong drink... by 12:30 I won't be able to wait any longer and we all need to eat something to have a good balance of booze to food ratio in the belly to avoid barfing at 4am when I most likely will still be drinking)

Then lunch inside in the dining room (squeezy with so many of us, but adds to the fun) then outside in the garden for the afternoon, weather permitting. If it's hot Jasmine tends to squirt everyone with water pistols..which actually isn't too bad if its over 30 degrees!
(Because of you we are going to have to sit on each other laps... why is it I invited your sorry ass again? Regardless of temperature we are going to have to sit outside because there isn't enough room with you being there and there is a strong possibility you will get splashed in the face with a water pistol. I suppose this could be one reason why I invited you as the extra person means that there will be less squirts directed at me this year and we will all avoid the wet t-shirt incident we encountered last Christmas. P.s. hopefully this year the water pistol won't be filled with pee like it was in 05... here is to hoping!!)
Family info for you.
My husband Malcolm is a skinny Englishman, still has a strong accent despite claiming not to do so..took me a year to understand some of what he said (smile).
( He is a midget and he is sensitive about it, so no jokes. When he drinks there is no chance you will have any idea what he is saying, but this is most likely for the better, so cheers to that)

My sons are Willis, a bureaucrat come to think of it, in Melbourne; plays club cricket, volley ball (?) golf, used to play Aussie rules football and rugby and American football in his teens .
(Bureaucrat... so you he is going to ask you about your politics and religion within the first 10 minutes of meeting you.. you better bring your a-game... if you are getting killed trying changing the topic to the following sports)

Duncan, Jasmine's Dad, plays club tennis, plays acoustic guitar, Jasmine does gymnastics. (is scarily good at it). (It's a possibility that Duncan's partner Tamara and her 6 yr old daughter Jade will also be here. depends on how she can fit in both families. )
(Duncan will be so busy trying to keep Jasmine under control you won't have to worry about him)

My youngest son Jon (aged 28) still hasn't a clue about what do with his life, like many youngest sons apparently (smile). He began a BA at Flinders, dropped out, likes films and computers and is a really gentle guy...
(Where have a heard this story before minus the gentle part?)
And my Mum, Lena is a wonderful woman, who is very lucid at 85, but has recently lost a lot of her eyesight due to macular degeneration..but she doesn't let that stop her!
(A saucy lady who will indulge in a medicinal drink by about 8am can't see a thing, but she will be stripping by 2pm regardless.... nothing has stopped her including the depression and WW2)

Hmmm, if you want to bring anything a bottle of wine is always welcome...but if you don't drink, anything is fine.
(You better bring a bottle of wine, even if you don't drink and for your sake you better.. .you should still bring a bottle... its like Church when they pass around the plate for collection.. you know its a ripoff, but you don't want anyone to think you are mooching!!)
Do you drive or cycle?
(As I have hinted throughout this e-mail... the only chance of someone surviving this ordeal is to drink copious amounts of booze, so you should most likely drive unless you plan on driving home with your eyes closed and I can't really condone such actions)

Random

I'm suffering from Acute Radiation Poisoning, yet not one reader seems overly concerned... As you can see the poisoning has attracted some funny looks at the beach.

The table has been set! I heard one of my neighbours say that they do not really like U2. This comment was made while listen to the Live Vertigo DVD from Chicago. Well I'm not a fan of their 30 cigs a day, which waft up and into our flat. As you can guess 5/9 Cross St. has turned into U2 everyday all day. They have no idea how persistent I can be.

Were you as surprised as me when you heard that A-Rod denied using steroids on 60 minutes? Shocking! I thought he was going on t.v. to come clean and admit his rampant steroid use.

The word of the day on Google is unfledged.. I had been looking for the right word to explain why I'm still in a training bra and unfledged fits perfectly. I still use a training bra because my delicious bobbies are still unfledged.

Presently I feel like I'm on trial and I'm waiting for the jury to comeback with the verdict. I had to take our car in because of the fan belt, but of course upon being brought into the garage they noticed that there were a few components on the muffler that needed replacing (is it just me or is the muffler at the other end of the car?). Nevertheless I didn't ask how much it was going to cost and decided I'd treat it as a Kinder Surprise. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the cost associated with car maintenance in Australia... An oil change runs for about $100. I can only imagine how much this is going to cost.

Erin and I have officially secured tickets to the Australian Open!!! Saturday the 19th under the lights and Sunday morning. Its going to be AWESOME!!

Poison

Erin tried poisoning me!! Before she left for Canada she bought me an Advent calendar... you know the ones with the chocolates for each day. Well I hadn't opened up yet and the last few times we chatted on the phone she kept asking if I'd been keeping up with it. Well today I decided to cracked it open... upon first look I was surprised to see that is wasn't a solid brown piece of chocolate and that it had a design on the back of the chocolate or so I suspected... it wasn't until I placed the chocolate in my mouth that I realised that it wasn't a design, but rather poison that was obviously put there by Erin in her attempt to be an assassin I have obviously played the role of Alexander Litvinenko. If this is the last time I write in this blog you'll know that the polonium-210 has taken hold and I've succumb to acute radiation syndrome. Please pine box coffin and I'd like to wear the signed Milt Stegall jersey that I never got to wear.

On a side note... did anyone read the comment on the last entry? It was from Rick and I believe he may be the first random reader I have ever had... how exciting! His blog is http://organizeddoodles.blogspot.com/ he has some cool drawings and pictures on his blog... Its better than mine... I'm going to have to step it up a notch!

Susantha

I'm not sure if you may remember Susantha? An international student from Sri Lanka who has zero computer skills and I ended up being his group partner three times in 2006. Well over the past semester I have helped him type out his assignments... yes you could use the "give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish he eats for a life time." However, I'm too busy doing my own work and he is normally doing his assignments 2 weeks after the due date... time is normally of the essence. Regardless, a few days ago he asked if I could help him out and I being the sucker I am agreed. Well yesterday he comes over and he has his two kids and wife in tow? Not exactly ideal homework conditions, but not much I can do. Well... we head off to the beach with his kids and play around for a bit and everything is good and dandy, but we finally get to the point where we have to do the work. His assignment is 15 pages worth of math equations that must be typed into word format. I have to admit that I had never had the extreme pleasure of having to type math equations into word for... MY GAWD!!!! Is there anything in the world more painful? We worked till about 1 A.M. and got about half finished when I kicked him out because his wife, two kids and himself were asleep on the floor.

Susantha comes back this morning at about 9AM and the same pain stakingly slow process of typing in math equations continues. Around 12:30PM and nearly finish I say that I need to get out of the house and get some fresh air. We head to the Jetty to grab some lunch and Susantha continues on with his barrage of questions as to where are good places to visit around Adelaide and how the next day myself, him and his family should all jump in the car and go to said places. Well as we eat away he asks what I have planned for the day and I mention not much... maybe a run later on. Well as we head to the car he asks "so no plans for the rest of the day?" and I'm "nope" (yes I know you know where this is going) Before I know it we are driving in his tin box on the freeway towards McLaren Vale (wine region) to have a visit. I WAS DUPED!!!

Now you may think that my biggest concern in all this was that I was essentially kidnapped, but really that was child's plays. The far bigger concern at hand was being on the freeway. Have you any idea what it is like driving in the Australian version of a Chevette with a taxi driver from Sri Lanka? Let me set the situation... were driving downhill on a highway with the speed limit 110kph in a car that I'm pretty sure has a max speed of 91kph... at any rate... on said hill we are only going 80 and Susantha is braking. I'm in the passengers seat with pee running down one leg, one arm gripping the door handle for dear life and the other arm pulling Susantha's leg off the brake while he is shaking me off yelling he doesn't want to get a speeding ticket to which I'm yelling back "but I don't want to die"

We made it there and back, but a little worse for wear...

Not much else new on the Adelaide front...it has only been going up to about the mid 20's the last few days, but I suppose it could be worse.

What do you guys prefer? The black background or the new one?

Oh one last thing... I finally figured it out why so many Indians and Sri Lankins want me to go visit them when were are done school.. no its not because I'm a nice guy, but in India and Sri Lanka it is quite common for people to open up their own academies i.e. schools and to have a wite english speaking male is like having the Pope as a priest at your church. If I went and taught at one of these schools it would be like winning the lottery for some of these future school owners.

WANKER OF THE WEEK

• Clearly that is a no brainer.. me... who else gets suckered into helping with the most tedious assignment ever and get kidnapped?

THINGS I LIKE THIS WEEK

• Very excited about going to New Zealand

THINGS I DO NOT LIKE THIS WEEK

• My hamstring is not feeling too good.


• My neighbour who always who stomps his feet up the stairs every single time... why.. WHY??

6 in the morning

Its Sunday morning.... 6:30am... and I am awake. You may think this is because of my philosophy on life and how it revolves around "Early bird gets the worm""... not true. I am up because my loving girlfriend who had lived in Australia for almost two years went back home and still hasn't quite figured out the time difference and I got a nice little call at 5:30 this morning. On the positive side of things it is nice to go outside before it becomes 35 degrees outside, but the downside is what the heck am I going to do all day??





Oh here are my plants... just little guys...

Shrewd business people these Australians... Doughnuts used to be $0.75... just a steal of a deal and they agreed, so they raised the price to $1.25... chicken enchiladas used to be 5 for $10, again another great deal, so tasty... went to the store and now they are 4 for $10.. disappointment.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend... if anyone happens to take a number of outdoor closeup pictures(you know who you are) could you e-mail me what type of lens you use most often...

Its Hot

Hello kids,
How is everyone? Before I get started I want to wish Dave Lauder a Happy Birthday... I hope you had a good one.

I'm just sitting here gasping for air at midnight as the air is thick and humid because it is so damn hot... I'm pretty certain that I will not be sleeping well tonight with such warm conditions. I know you can all sympathize with me on how difficult it is to sleep when its warm outside.

Not much happening here. I am finally... FINALLY... finished school for the semester. It seemed like it was over after my practicum, but no they had one nasty treat left for me. My last assignment was a total of just under 100 pages and consisted of approximately 38,000 words.. yes you read that correctly.. 38,000 words. My teacher is off his rocker. The last time I checked I wasn't in the midst of writing my thesis, but rather unit plans for Ultimate Frisbee, Football, Floor Hockey and Golf. In case anyone cares to know... I ma confident that I have the best unit of flag football in all of South Australia... It is of no concern that I may be the only one in all of South Australia that knows anything about Flag football.. it still is number one.

I don't want to talk about those sad sack Bombers for too long, but I did want to make mention of one fact... watching the game (or in my case listening) was not disappointing because they lost, but rather it was disappointing listening to the game because at no point did you actually feel like they were going to win the game. Even with 1m30s to go and the ball at midfield just before numb nuts threw his third interception one could make the argument that it felt like they had the chance to win. I did not have those same tingly feelings.. as I sat 40cms away from the laptop listening to the game it was as if I was waiting for that interception and not a touchdown.. the loss almost seemed inevitable.

Greg I know you may be slightly concerned about Brett Favre and his injury... no need my friend. I have had a number of separated shoulders and there is very little pain involved in the injury, but rather a discomfort because the shoulder is so weak. I feel that Favre could easily play in the game without too much discomfort, however, after one of two good shots he will be in a little bit of trouble because when he falls towards the ground his left arm will not be able to sustain the blow and he will crash violently into the ground.

For those of you who are unaware... Erin is back in the Peg so please if you get a chance say hello to her.

I bought three plants to decorate the apartment.. they are doing well..I will keep you up to date on their health and growth. I wish I had more to tell, but I have just been so darn busy as of lately... I hope all is well in Canada.


WANKER OF THE WEEK

• Got into a rather heated debate with a med student over his claim the Rexall Place in Edmonton has the best ice in the NHL and I too have heard this before. However, how exactly does one qualify ice being the best.. his rebuttal was ask an NHL player to which I said well what if player A says one ice surface and player B says another.. how is right? It seems rather arbitrary to say on is better than the other...

THINGS I LIKE THIS WEEK

• No home work
• I got mail from Greg Morris.. I loved the pictures!!

THINGS I DO NOT LIKE THIS WEEK

• No school this week... despite my bitching I still kind of enjoy it.
• First running injury in ages.. pulled hamstring.. not happy about it
• Having trouble loading pictures for the blog, so sorry.

I'm back

HOLY SHIT ITS BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE I'VE POSTED!!!!

I'm alive... its true. You may be wondering what happened to me (or not) and although I'm not going to go into a detailed explanation I'll give you the coles notes version.

Erin and I moved... yes our lease was up, so we found a place not to far away and we are extremely happy about or upgrade (we now have carpet, but we no longer have air conditioning).

My birthday came and went and I'm a year older and a little better looking. On my birthday (the day before actually) we played the finals of our hockey and we lost in a shootout... the other team was stacked with players from the so called professional team here in Adelaide and we had a bunch of 16-year-olds, myself and a 40-year-old Canadian. We played well and I was very proud of our team. That night went to what may have been the best house party I've been to in Adelaide.. free beer, so you can't really go wrong. Now on my actual birthday I had a nasty.. nasty hangover and I was considering asking the good lord to take me a spare me of the pain I went through... I didn't though and lived to tell about it. It also turns out of had a few other hangovers since, so apparently I haven't learned my lesson.

Ran the Melbourne Marathon October 5th I believe it was... race was great expect that I ran the first 5 kms in 30 minutes, which is extremely slow.. once the race broke open a bit I managed to run most of the race at a 4m30s clip, but because of the slow start I only ran the race in 3h18m. I thought I would have been able to qualify for the Boston Marathon if it weren't for the slow start, but what can you do?

Went on a 5-week practicum for school. Day 1 I only had two kids cry, but after that it was great. I won't go into too much detail, but I am super excited about becoming a teacher and actually getting paid for it.

Went Mountain biking on an actual Mountain Bike course... never realized how fun it was or how sore your butt can get the next day.

Our neighbour his psycho. We BBQ close to our flat... someone complained, so I began BBQing near the road about 20 steps away from the apartment. They asked me to move to the other side of the building in a garden area and BBQ about 2 steps away from the building. Pretty certain that 2 steps is closer then 20.. I've even counted out the damn steps for the guy, but he clearly mental health issues and I was not about to pick an argument with his autistic ways.

Bought plane ticket to New Zealand for December 30th.. very excited.

WANKER OF THE WEEK:
I have my first UniSA teacher that I do no like. Philippa Millroy.. I would take great enjoyment in giving you a swift kick in your cottage cheese ass.

Erin has been studying diligently... she has exams this Saturday and then she goes back to Canada on the 30th.

Possums scare the dickens out of me when BBQing in the dark... damn sneaky animals. I'm pretty sure those raccoon like creatures scurry around with tiny little knives in their hands waiting to attack.

Clearly the Bombers do not deserve to win the Grey Cup and without Kevin Glenn there is even more reason why they shouldn't win, but you know what... its that very reason why they just might win.

THINGS I LIKE THIS WEEK

• I will be having my first Grey Cup Party next Monday and you are all welcome
• I will do a better job of writing in here now that we have internet up and running regularly
• One last assignment till summer break
• the 30 degree weather we've been having for the last week or two

THINGS I DON'T LIKE THIS WEEK

• The one last assignment I have to spend the next week doing.
• Because I haven't been writing in my blog I haven't heard from Dave and Greg.