祝你生日快樂,
祝你生日快樂,
祝你生日快樂,
祝你生日快樂!
(I only use the traditional Chinese because I can’t find it in Simplified.)
Enjoy a great mid-week birthday. I’d smack you on the back and ask if you wanna make something of it, but you’re too far away.
Neil and I bought a bunch of Colgate toothpaste from a pound shop a while ago. Then I decided to do a little digging into the toxic toothpaste story, and yes, our cheap toothpaste is marked “Made in South Africa”.
They’ve been thrown out, and replaced by Colgate I bought in Boots.
And our decision could not have come too soon, it seems: Suspect products from China turn up in Europe. I could just be paranoid, but it’s better to be safe than sorry poisoned, eh.
Now they’ve banned running for trains…
Yup. Health and safety, apparently. So if your once-an-hour train into Glasgow Central is late and your connection leaves in two minutes you aren’t to run and so will be late for work.
(Thank goodness this is no longer an issue for me, I only need to take one bus.)
I’m not a chick lit reader at the best of times (but at the worst of times, when I’m very bored, I’ll read anything), but when there was a £1 clearance sale at Amazon UK and I felt the obligation to buy books that I could share with those situated close to me (read: Neil’s mother and sister, who are both chick lit readers), I took the plunge and risked it.
It starts off promisingly enough. I was quite interested in the telling of each woman’s tale, how each of them is so different from the rest, but they were all best friends due to circumstances two decades ago. It made me think of what the expatriate situation was like in Xiamen (before so many expats arrived in 2005-6), everyone had to be friends because we were all strangers in a (comparatively) strange land.
The synopsis is this: six women, all long-time friends, are meeting on what will be the coldest night of the year, to celebrate the impending arrival of a baby.
Neil points out that describing the failed Glasgow bombers as ‘Asian’ doesn’t exactly narrow things down much. Asia stretches from one end of Turkey to Japan, as far north as the former USSR, and south as far as Indonesia (I reckon Australia would’ve been considered part of Asia had it not been colonised by the Poms).
Bomb it all! Bomb us all.
(I’m the ‘right’ kind of Asian at the moment, so no petrol bombs will be lobbed at me. The worst racist treatment I get is shock that I’m on the wrong side of the counter at the Chinese takeaway.)
The sky is falling, al-Qaida is to blame: “The worst the present crop of maniacs appears able to do is kill people… Terrorism cannot work without the fear engendered by publicity and the clamour for revenge.” — Simon Jenkins, We are offering the terrorist a megaphone for his cause
Dear Bus Company,
I thank you for the generally prompt and reliable service you have given thus far. In light of recent events, I completely understand the need to impose new security policies on drivers and passengers of your inter-city coaches. In fact, some may even applaud you for taking the decision that all hold-alls larger than a tote need to be stored in the luggage compartment, and cannot be brought on board the passenger seating area. After all, we need to give some passengers the best possible chance to escape, should there be a bomb in one of these bags.
The coaches in question, however, locate their baggage compartments on either side of the fuel tank. The words ‘raging’ and ‘fireball’ come to mind.
Yours sincerely,
A bemused passenger
I was bloody impatient for Chris Cornell to come on stage. We had already taken our time and arrived 30 minutes after Carling Academy’s doors opened; we had another hour to go before the former Soundgarden frontman appeared.
First impressions — wow, he’s a tall lad, ain’t he? I saw Soundgarden perform twice in 1997: at Perth’s Big Day Out, then less than a week later in a concert (it must have been right before the band split). Jebediah opened for them that time (and went on to being commercially successful in Australia). I remember the days when I was deluding myself, that someone of such slight build could hold her own among the moshing masses.
(I remember Temple of the Dog, too. I liked them, knew of the Pearl Jam connection but not of Chris Cornell.)
So. Back to 27 June 2007 and a much older Chris Cornell touring solo. I’m not ashamed to admit I much prefer his Soundgarden work, as that was when I still thought I could mosh. As you can see from my tweets, I was really hoping to hear Spoonman. He also played Jesus Christ Pose (which, I think, required his long, curly hair for maximum effect), Black Hole Sun, and My Wave. The band came back and played three encores (I’ve never experienced that before).
By the way, I have a theory that if Chris Cornell had been classically-trained as a singer, he’d have ended up as that sort of recording artist — his voice is so distinctive and powerful. You could just lose yourself in it.
All in all, it was an EXCELLENT night out and £25 well-spent. I was definitely buzzing after the concert finally ended, and am still so glad I got tickets all those months ago.
(The photos were taken on my Dopod phone, and didn’t come out too badly, considering how small the lens is and how far away we were from the stage.)
I don’t share the general undying love and devotion that Apple fans have displayed for the iPhone. One of my main reasons is I have an allergy to being locked into using something I would not otherwise use (i.e. iTunes, hence I’ve never even contemplated buying an iPod). If I was in the US and got an iPhone I’d be locked into using AT&T (and spend a shitload of money in the process).
If I don’t explain my other primary reason why the iPhone leaves me colder than a frigid lady polar bear, I’m sure I’m going to hear some passioned defence and ad hominem arguments, so here it is:
I am a klutz. If I spent well over six hundred US dollars on an all-singing, all-dancing converged device*, it had better not be all shiny and consist mainly of a glass touchscreen. Because I will drop it within a quarter of an hour, glass side down. On a very hard surface. From height.
Apple has alienated groups of users such as myself.
* I also have an issue with converged devices. I like having multiple gadgets that do their one job well.
Jeff sent an e-mail, seeing if I had any reaction to the Glasgow attack. My main one was (without knowing too many details last night),
What a bunch of lousy terrorists. The bombs either don’t go off or they set themselves — no one else — on fire.
The media are going nuts, reporting as many sordid details as they can get their hands on. From the witness interviews I’ve seen, they’ve betrayed more feelings of… inconvenience, not out-and-out panic.
Alex Salmond and Mohammad Sarwar have said the attackers were not Scottish, which is good because no one could conceive of a Scot deliberately trying to kill other Scots (heard Sarwar say this on STV).
<sarcasm>Yeah, the Scots are such pacifists who never deliberately cause harm to others.</sarcasm>
Neil had to drive to Prestwick to pick his sister up at the airport last night (great timing, huh), and he reported that there were a couple of police cars, someone checking every car that came in (and directing them to the correct car parking areas), and police stationed at every entrance. This afternoon, there were a few police officers walking around in Livingston, but things have been extremely calm.
So far, while the media seems to be hoping to be able to report the kind of widespread panic Americans are known for, I don’t think the people are letting them have it. Neil reckons it’s because the UK has had so many years’ experience with the IRA.