I have made a very depressing discovery. Elmo toys are a one off. Apparently, each year, the Elmo factory churns out the latest talking, dancing, laughing Elmo, example being Tickle Me Elmo from a few years ago. The Elmo factory people may never make Tickle Me Elmo again. Ever. So, right now every E-Bay seller is being kept awake each night dreaming about what they will do with the fortune they rake in from selling Tickle Me Elmo for outlandish sums to fools like me.

In the below clip, you can see the resident hound figures the hysterical Elmo is another reason to dig up the back garden. My cat (RIP), was not such a big fan of my Elmo. Ian bought me the Hawaiian one, which does the limbo, rolls around and sings a rather fetching little tune. Whenever I let Elmo do this 'thang', the cat would recoil in horror, attempt to kill him and when he showed no signs of going to the Pearly Gates, she would sit in disgust, turn her back to him and hiss.

Aaah yes, Elmo, a treat for all the family.

Tickle Me Elmo X TMX Elmo

I have discovered that it it more exhausting to pretend to be working than it is to actually be working. It is more exhausting to try to drag out an activity over an hour than to it is to get it done in 10 minutes.

At this rate of going I could actually turn into a workaholic!

Wahey!

Borat!


This evening I went to see Borat with some friends and what a cinematic experience it proved to be. I had tried to avoid reading reviews prior to viewing, but curiosity killed me. I caved in and indulged in perusing the Times and was shocked that one of the primary, notoriously fickle critics, Cosmo Landesman, granted it an unheard of five stars. I was intrigued that it had received such rave reviews, considering that Borat himself has always been a rather controversial character, and so was keen to see what all the 'kerfuffle' was about.

To cut short what could be a really long personal opinion, all I have to say is, it must be seen. It is hilarious, offensive, shocking, eye opening , jaw dropping and everything that one would expect from a Sacha Baron Cohen creation. It is no holds barred. It is vulgar. It is horrifying, but above all, it is an entertaining, well made piece of cinema.

However if you are offended by those that mock or insult, Kazakhstan, homosexuality, Jews, gypsies, Americans, feminists, Evangelicals, politicans, black people, white people, fat people, right wing individuals, terrorism, Hitler, or Pamela Anderson, you might want to opt for something Disney made.

My brother doesn't seem to realise that we have to pay for gas and electricity in the real world. I have lost track of all the times that I have come home to find all the lights on, gas on , windows open and all sorts of media appliances running at the same time. This evening is a fine example. I returned from work to find the lights on in every single room, even though he was lying on the couch in the living room, the heating on, with all doors and windows open, the shower on to build up steam to decrease his shirt, and the iron on even though it wasn't being used ( seeing as the waste of water and gas was already taking care of his shirt).

Mutter

Why won't the sentences on my below post align correctly? Is this a sign that I am supposed to go Beta? I would, if I knew what on earth Beta was.

I've decided I want a pet. A real pet. None of that robotic stuff for me. However, seeing as I am not home enough and rather lethargic about cleaning up their 'mess', I may have some obstacles to overcome.

Dog- might as well get a child instead considering all the minding they require, what with extended walks, mountain sized bags of feed, poop walks, playtime, attention time, hug time, pat time, fetch time, bath time so on so forth
Cat- good to leave on their own, but bad when one returns from a day of work and is greeted with toilet roll shredded confetti style on the bathroom floor. One is forced to reconsider ones
thoughts. Also, cat litter stinks.
Budgie- the constant tweeting would drive me to feed it to the above cat
Turtle - would freeze to death here. Damned if I am buying all the fancy schmanzy equipment
to keep the thing alive. Enough of a struggle to keep myself warm.
Fish - Ian has fish. I forgot to feed them on many an occasion, or, to compensate, over fed
them, ( fussy little critters) and moaned when we had to clean the bowl. Plus they aren't any
fun. The dont do tricks, apart from the 'belly up' one.
Reptile things - vomit
Pony- always wanted one, but I think the Building Management ladies might have a negative comment or two about a little Sheltand 'mowing' the patch of grass some developer had the nerve to call a garden.
Hamsters- They die at an early age..........perhaps the constant running on a wheel is akin to the human stress test. Weeds out the weaklings. Mind you, I couldnt deal with the weekly grief.

The real thing does not appear to be a viable option.

However, this is!

It's genius. It even hisses if its tail is pulled. What a wonderful lesson to teach young and impressionable children

Happy Halloween!

It is true what is said about Irish weather.

It rains everyday.

I have seen it all. I really have. An English tv channel has aired a programme called "Flash Families". It charts the excessive lifestyle of three families in England, two who can afford it and one who cannot. One family decides to go duck hunting for the day and heaven forbid if they wore standard outdoor protective clothing. No, the botox loving wife is costumed in a full length fur coat with leopard skin, Russan style hat and leopard skin dress. Standard attire for a day in mud. Not to be outdone, the family getting by on a modest income, provide their four kids with designer clothing. Most entertaining was the 13 year old son who was filmed getting dressed for a christening. He estimated that it would take him an hour and a half to get ready, what with fitting in shaving, applying aftershave and choosing from his wardrobe ranging from Burberry to Versace. Good lord. The final family consisted of a bunch of spoiled brats. The daughter of the family argued with her brother over which car to drive, so the Mum went to their local Gucci store, picked up a bag worth £350 and brought it home to turn her daughter's frown upside down. However, she didn't want her feuding son to feel bad so she purchased a Gucci coat to brighten up his day.

Complete and utter insanity.

God, I love TK Maxx. Really, I do. Where else can one purchase a fabulous full length cardigan coat for what a Mammy would term, "a steal". I am refusing to shop anywhere else from now on. However, I am not a fan of the 'mail train', from Cork to Dublin, otherwise known as the 530am Insanity Ride. It was the redneck train, stopping at every single station on the way. Apparently the middle of the country doesnt quite get things up and going at 6am, as every station we passed through was completely deserted with ne'er a light on, ( which would have been nice, seeing as sunrise wasn't until after 8am), or a soul leaning on a shovel. It was rather eerie to hear the swwoosh of the doors as they swung open at each stop, only to note that no one emerged from the darkness onto the light of the train. Spooky.

I loathe job searching. I loathe how people analyse and dissect and dismiss a CV that took the best part of a lifetime to create. I loathe how, despite all "CV Creation Guides", there doesn't appear to be a defintive method to producing a successful CV. I loathe how not one professional agreed on a format for my CV. I hold special contempt for the "trained professional" who, after perusing my CV, failed to notice that I had any third level qualifications and demanded to know how on earth I had been employed by a secondary school. I can only presume she suffered some form of temporary blindness for three lines.

I have become quite the wizard at job searching. I think I am BFF with a number of recruiters and on-line sites and I am quite the typist too. I had a meeting today with a recruitment agency for some work to help boost my experience in administration. After our meeting, the very nice lady suggested that I do a typing test. Initially I thought she was joking, that was until I found myself seated in front of a computer, typing for all I was worth. The computer software told me, "You are a great typist!". It may have been the highlight of my day. I should at this point thank msn and Ian for encouraging my typing skills. Quite the exercise for a modern day typist. However, while typing, scenes from "The Secretary" kept running through my mind. Not the kind of thoughts you want when trying to beat a computer.

I had a complaint about my blog. Yes. A real live complaint. The culprit? Claire King. Apparently I failed to mention the glorious weekend at her cottage on the edge of Lake Eerie..so to prevent a seismic shift in relations, I shall pen my memoir of those celebrated days. (!!)

Prior to Ian returning to university, he and I travelled to the cottage that his aunt and uncle own for a few days. For those that aren't in the know, it is quite common for Canadians to own a little cottage in the heart of the countryside, to escape that madness that is weekday downtown Toronto. Their cottage is not far from the small, unassuming... oh who am I kidding, from the redneck town of Dunville, far enough to ignore, near enough to get Tim Hortons.
Where their cottage is located, there aren't any tarmac avenues or bright lights. Instead there are grass drives and bonfires. The cottage was deceivengly small, as once we entered I was quite amazed at how large the interior was and how beautifully decorated it was.

Subsuquent days went spent lounging on the deck or by the lake with drink in hand, or running like a woman possessed from the wasps that were , contrary to what others may say, trying to kill me. Evenings were spent watching 'Lost', which is a pile of poo or watching Ian cook food, which was not poo.

John and Claire joined us at the cottage for the weekend and over the course of the weekend we were treated to fresh trout, swedish games, rotti, Trivial Pursuit defeats, countless card games and the highlights of the weekend.......... Horse Racing and the most amazing fabulous wonderful fattening,who cares if it is fattening, tantalising, sensational dessert ever....

To explain. A friend of John and Claire, found or developed... I am a little unsure, a board/gambling game called horse racing. It is a little difficult to explain, but the 'ingredients' are a wooden board, cards, money, luck, money and a terribly positive outlook! I enjoyed the game immensely, Ian nearly had to be taken away in the Gambler's Anonymous ambulance.

The dessert. The most amazing dessert in the world was made by another friend of John and Claire. It sounds simple, but the taste is not........ possibly due to the volumes of sugar. To create one takes a little pretzel and a little mini rolo. Squish the rolo on top of the pretzel slap it in the oven until a little melted, remove. Atop the melted, squished rolo, place a nut... brazil, walnut, hazedl... not the village kind and demolish. Yum.

I am scared to recreate for fear I will inadvertently maim the treat, thereby terminating my relationships with the rolo, the nut and the pretzel.

Vroom.

On Friday night, in the middle of a huge fork lightning storm, Ian and I started our journey to Watkins Glen racetrack in New York state. What an eventful journey we had, from Ian convincing himself we were lost to me seeing Amish people for the first time and getting far too excited over it, from the horrendously expensive cars, to seeing said horrendously expensive cars returned to their owners in a bucket after one spin out too many. Prior to going, I had asked Ian what I could expect to see over the weekend. I received a response, dripping with sarcasm, "Cars, Eileen, cars". Turns out we were attending the biggest vintage racing event in the United States. And we had HOT PASSES! I will admit that when I was handed the hot pass I was oblivious as the advantages it afforded Ian and I. We were allowed amble through all the garages, the pits, the pit stop areas and the technical areas. Of course the only thing that I wanted to see was a spectacular crash. There was only one, which I somehow missed, but I did catch sight of the remains. The area where the car shells were placed resembled a car morgue what with all the broken parts covered by white sheets.

Over the course of two days I saw a lot of cars and have decided that my favourite is the Ford GT 40 cos it looks nice. No technical reasoning at all, although I was assured that I had made a good choice.

The race was being held near the small town of Watkin's Glen, but Ian and I were staying in a little area called Painted Post. How amazing are Americans with placenames? Our hotel was a pretty swiffy place and was right next to Denny's, the American culinary experience. Everyone had told me Denny's was a nasty place, that the food was terrible and that I would probably die after a plate. Well those people obviously haven't tried the Extreme Grand Slam........... or a real Irish breakfast for that matter.

Travelling from Canada into the States was one of those "Please, not again" situations. Havnig stopped at the border, Ian and I were directed to 'Room 1' to await processing as I was not a citizen of either border country. As soon as I stepped into the holding room, I could feel the depression. The room looked as though it might have been a bathroom at some time in the past and was painted that disgusting public bathroom green. Sitting in the room were five men from Pakistan and India and a family of seven from an area of Africa. After sitting in the room for 4o minutes I was starting to get on the wrong side of grumpy, but felt even worse when me, the white girl, was allowed entry into the States before the Indians, Pakistanis or Africans, even though they had been waiting far longer than me. How just......................................................?

Returning to Canada took an entire 3o seconds. Anyone think America is overdoing it slightly?


I noticed at the race meet that the majority of the people there were middle aged if not older. Once explained to me it made a lot of sense seeing as some of the cars in show cost in excess of a million dollars and I do not know many twenty one year olds that can afford such wheels.

Typical. On Sunday night I was floating around the Toronto city area. Brad Pitt was doing similar and somehow he missed me. I need to formulate a plan for next year. Better strategy will be developed.

In happier news I have discovered Dairy Queen. Well, not just Dairy Queen, but the Blizzard. There are 11 toppings to choose from. Except me to be found, unconscious, in a pool of melted Blizzards with all 11 toppings in and around me.

All you can eat sushi for lunch. I may be ill. There is a parfait cup in the fridge. If I have to manually make room in my stomach for parfait I will do so.

Weekend plans are all set. I am going to New York state for vintage car racing with Ian and his Mom and Dad. I shall not be racing cars, although I am quite sure there are some of you that would be willing to pay to witness that debacle.

Looks like I will be particpating in the process that built the Americas. Immigration. After much thinking, discussing, and attempts at getting my head around the Canadian Immigration method, I feel that it is more advantageous to get my hands on a residency card, as I will be afforded far more opportunities in Canadia with permanent status. It is a long process involving a large chunk of my bank account, a medical from some Canadian approved Irish doctor and a thorough police check into my background. How delightful. I will be starting the process towards the end of September once I am back in Ireland, and will stay in Ireland, until I have been approved. It throws a rather large dent in the plans that Ian and I had, but it is the best in the long run.

So with that in mind I shall dedicate myself to enjoying my time here in Canada. Not that I haven't been doing that already, what with the lakes, the zoo, the barbeques and the parfait I found at a local store, which may result in me paying for excess personal weight on my flight to Ireland. Of course I have managed to justify my consumption of said parfait by "jogging" to the store...... not that I can see any immediate results.

On Saturday I will fly to Toronto.

However, I have been forced to beat myself up mentally as I never bothered to get a second airmiles card last year and so have waved goodbye to thousands of points. But, I have managed to turn that frown even more upside down as I am participating in the worst activity in the world....packing. I am incapabable of packing light, and must admit that when I see people at the baggage carousel in airports swinging the little bag over their shoulder that contains a toothbrush and a thong for their two week vacation, I get jealous. I feel obliged to pack for all four seasons,all weather conditions and so what if it is the middle of August, it could snow and I MIGHT need that goose down coat.

I decided to leave all my washing until today, which means I have a mountain of ironing to do. Of course, there aren't any guarantees that I will actually do any of it. Not like I signed a contract with the iron. I'll reason a way out of doing it. Of course getting one part of me to reason/negotiate with the other part of me might the symptomatic of something much deeper.....

Today I went into town to get my Canadian dollars and was forced to deal with a weed of an employee. Disaster. I stood at the teller and explained that I was here to collect Canadian dollars and US travellers cheques under the name of E. O'Brien. The weed stared blankly at me and allowed a rather prolonged pause. Eventually after much pausing and staring at each other, he let out a rather large sigh, stared back at me and said, ( wait for it), 'Well I cant do much if you don't tell me who you are'. The security camera was nearly driven through the pea that resides in place of his brain. He was promptly given the 'You had better stop acting the maggot or I will have such a loud complaint made you will regret the day you ever encountered me' look. I rather calmly retold him my name and watched as he forced his bottom from its chair and puffed his way over to the foreign exchange area. He then returned with Canadian dollars and American dollars. I took the opportunity to mimic his sigh and issued the 'look' again and informed him that I had requested US travellers cheques. I might as well have hurled a bucket of cow pats at him such was the look of disgust on his face. He turned from me to stare at the whole two yards he had to retrace back to the foreign exchange area. I was tempted to offer him my bottle of water for the journey, but decided any further aggravation to the weed would have catastrophic effects on my travellers cheques.

Long story short, I got the dollars and cheques and am keeping them under lock and key. The weed wanted to know where I was going in Canada. I lied and said 'Vancouver'. They can have him!

I have finally mastered the art of tranferring pictures from a digital camera to a laptop without Ian's assistance.... and it only took me the better part of a month to learn. However, I have selected just a few pictures from the vacation that Maebh and I took to Hanoi in June of this year. During our stay in Hanoi we took a two day trip around the world heritage site of Halong Bay. The journey was magnificent as watching the enormous limestone islets shoot from water that ranged from blue to rather lagoon like green was awe inducing. The first picture was taken at 6am from the top deck of our junk boat. We slept over night on the junk, but due to intense heat in the cabins I got up early to get some air. The boats are those of local fishermen going to work, travelling through the inlets and bays of Halong Bay.

The second picture is one that I am particularly proud of and should I ever come across a photo competition for 'Those That Have Been To Vietnam And Have Great Pictures To Prove It', I have every intention of entering and winning. The area where I took this picture is the site of the our incident with the local armed forces. The dirt path was a long way off from achieving road status and barely wide enough for a honda 50, yet our tour bus and the army jeeps(we presume they were training in the area), decided they could of course make it down the path at the same time. It was not to be, resulting in the jeep and tour bus scraping sides. Not very enjoyable for the Danish guy sitting beside me (window side),as he was afforded an up close and personal view of the little lake due to the force from the army jeep, pushing our bus closer and closer to the edge of said lake. Of course, did the army jeeps stop after mangling the tour bus. NO. The result of that was seeing our bus driver give chase, disappear around the corner, leaving us alone, in the middle of nowhere with a bus. He eventually came back. Minus an apology from the army. At least my picture is nice.

Picture 3 speaks for itself really. It was taken at the Hanoi War Museum at the base of the Cot Co Flag Tower. What you can see in the picture is military waste. If I knew my war crafts I would list the names of those on display, but, I don't. I did read what they all were at the time, but I blame the heat for erasing all war related information from my head. ( I do believe there were MIG's there though............)

Maebh and I also visited the Temple of Literature which was a magnificent example of Vietnamese architecture. Picture 4 is taken from the interior of one of the buildings. I was quite favouring the inside to outside pictures instead of the outside to inside ones, as the intense afternoon heat was playing havoc with little fragile me. So, I sought refuge in the cool (ish) indoor environment.

While sailing around Halong Bay we stopped at one of the caves that are quite common around the area. The cave that we visited was illuminated with a broad spectrum of colours, some so blinding it was rather difficult to see the rock facing. However, I have my doubts as to whether or not the interior of the caves are genuine, seeing as some of the rock formations looked rather unnatural and did not have the texture one associates with caves. Nevertheless, the interiors were certainly interesting to view. The final picture shows the orange illumination in contrast to the natural light stealing in from an opening.

Yesterday I saw the teeny tiny weener family. Grandad, dad and son tearing up and down the beach with ........well i was going to say with "everything hanging out"................ but ......well..........

It just does not cease to amaze how free and willing these men are to strip to their birthday suits and frolic in the surf.

Of course I cannot talk , seeing as I went out in high waves again, this time with a bodyboard and successfully lost the bottom half of my bikini twice....yes that was fun...diving under incoming waves praying to all the gods that it hadn´t been washed to shore.