Life Without Toast - Sibling Rivalry

So anyway, then came the panic after the initial relief, I was freaking out at home, on my own, all day, with nothing but the internet and the telly to keep me company, or so I thought, turns out the telly wasn?t working for the first week of unemployment, so I had the internet, and my auld flower from old job to keep me company via email, she is leaving soon so is allowed to doss off and send me ridiculously long & sympathetic emails, I learned a lot on Wikipedia, and basically stalked people via the wonders of myspace, facebook and the dreaded bebo, shh now, I am still allowed to have a bebo, I am a child still in my mind!! Then one of my friends or now ex friends decided to turn into a psycho, she was a bit of a psycho before about two months ago but I let it go and thought that she would get over it, but she hadn?t, she got let go from a job that she thought she had for life and went on the dole and spent all day smoking joints (like lots and lots and lots) and skulling vodka and becoming more and more paranoid and then attacked me via email because I said that I didn?t like the sandwiches from a certain establishment. She said that I thought that she was below me because I am picky about my sandwiches, and food in general, I am a chef for jasus sake, I mean, we are picky about food, and I was before then anyway, its quite hilarious really because of the subject which she went insane over, but she is gone now and I am quite glad about it, the relief is immense.

Posted by Babs at 8:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I have decided to do this in stages, because all in all it is too long for one go, so here is part one, and the rest of the parts will be coming soon to a computer screen near you:

Matt reminded me that I hadn?t posted in a while, I really should have because I have done a lot, and a lot has happened, and then I wasn?t doing anything for a while as well, so sorry peeps!

So I started a new job in an unmentionable place which I promptly legged it from due to the person who I reported to directly being a complete bully/wagon/the C word!! I started on Monday the 8th Oct, I left on Weds the 10th Oct, shortest employment term ever, go me!! She was horrible, she had me in tears on the first day because apparently I had done something totally wrong even though she was supposed to show me and she never did, she had fecked off for coffee and a fag or something and left me there for three hours totally clueless and when she came back she was all ?oh I expected better from you, I was sure you would hit the ground running but you haven?t I am disappointed, tut tut?, I swear if she tutted a bit more her tongue would fall off. She kept on having to run off to meetings, and then told me that I should be working faster, even though I was on average 20% faster than the initial fastness targets she had set for me, the auld wagon, she wasn?t auld though, she was about 26 and had just been newly appointed the title of manager, only she couldn?t manage a piss up in a brewery or whatever that saying is, then she told me I lacked passion, (this is all on the first morning, she had yet to tell me where the toilet was like!!!) that I lacked drive and obviously had no ambition to succeed, I love the way she could tell all this after my first morning, most of which she was on her mobile talking shite to her ?friends? or out the back smoking, or doing important stuff, like walking around with a chip on her shoulder, she was mean, mean, mean, she had a mean mouth, no lips, mean, I knew she was going to be a total wagon from the second I laid eyes on her, the job was not what the job description was, and well, she was horrible and rude and a bully and I put myself through a long time working with people like that before and I was and am not willing to kill myself for someone like that, she was a right knack bag too, I bet she was dying to wear her air max into work!! I cried on the phone to the agency that got me the job and then they told me that I was actually the third person that they had sent there who had legged it ?oh yeah, she has a bit of a tendency to be a bully, just put it down to her lack of experience as a manager? I was like ?em, that?s not MY problem?, dicks!!

Posted by Babs at 12:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Well we are back, and we had a great time. We flew with BA and they were really great. We got the seats, the meals and the basinette (kind of sit up cot thing) that we ordered and there was very little delay etc.

We stayed with Janel and Mort Smith and their kids Braden and Nadia, in their fabulous house in Tampa for the first (overcast) week but it was lovely and sunny anyways. Isobel was so good on the flights, hardly cried at all and took lots of naps. She was referred to by a lady in business class as the 'da da da baby'. haha.
We did a lot of day trips to Tarpon Springs, the Ellenton Outlets (GO Visa credit card), Lowry Park Zoo, Channelside and the Florida Aquarium and Ybor City. Then we headed to Sanibel and Captiva (only we didn't go to Captiva) on the south West Coast. Sanibel is a little Island but it's totally signboard and neon free and it's only 25miles and hour speed limit and it's very quiet and quaint. Very pretty. Then we went to St. Augustine on the Atlantic coast. For America it's gorgeous, really cute little spanish colonial town. We really enjoyed our few days there. God I am even boring myself typing this.

Here are some of the photos. There are too many to upload.

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/Pixiegirlo/Tampa?authkey=ah7rfsyW2t4

Posted by Becca at 1:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

_{* May not, in fact, be Chinese, but another Asian language.
** Estimated, there or thereabouts. The vast, vast majority.
*** Doo-doo-bee-doo-doo.}

Posted by Matt at 2:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

It's Star Wars, right, with the characters replaced by the cast of Family Guy. Sounds alright (or: a bit rubbish), yeah?

Let me first say this: If you're not either 1) a HUGE Star Wars fan, or 2) a HUGE Family Guy fan, or preferably both, you won't like this at all. Please leave now.

Still here? Okay. This episode of Family Guy... really is... Star Wars.

No, really.

It really, really is. A lot of the lines are exactly as they were in Star Wars. The music is the music from Star Wars, and I don't mean it's the same basic music played by different people, it's the actual music. It's spot-on, John Williams, London Symphony Orchestra-tastic. If you're #1 above, you'll be saying the lines as Peter/Stewie/Chris/Lois say them, whilst humming along with the music that's playing in your head, and coming from your TV, the same way as you be would if you had Empire in your video player on a Sunday afternoon when you were 12. It even has the actual special effects plates for some of the scenes (and all of the effects it has are from the ORIGINAL version of Episode IV, hooray!) that were in the movie. The real ones, not an imitation.

So it's Star Wars. Pretty much completely, and perfectly.

But it's also Family Guy, which means it goes off on insane tangents that you didn't see coming (because it's written by manatees, of course), but this time, they're Star Wars tangents. If I haven't stressed it enough, you must know Episode IV inside out, back to front and upside down to appreciate most of the gags for what they are: Perfect, perfect pastiches or something you know intimately (fnaar), and love dearly.

I found myself actually Laughing Out Loud at the majority of the gags, which is something normally reserved for some of the grosser, more hardcore episodes of South Park, or for when I see someone's pants split open when they bend over or something. It really is properly, hilariously funny.

So, if you like Family Guy (a LOT) and you've watched Star Wars (Episode IV, "A New Hope") as many times as I have (a LOT) and know it every which way you can, this episode will be your new Best Thing Ever™. Seriously, it's that good.

10 pieces of toast out of 10 (if you fall into both categories described in paragraph 2, above. If you don't, probably 1 or 2 out of 10, you ignorant nerf-herder).

Wikipedia/IMDB

Posted by Matt at 2:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I have been listening to every bit of Radiohead I have on constant rotation for the past 4 days. This is how In Rainbows fits into their album discography, in my opinion, in order of awesomeness.

1. OK Computer
2. The Bends
3. In Rainbows
4. Pablo Honey
5. Hail To The Thief
6. Kid A
7. Amnesiac

Anyone who disagrees with me can do so in the comments, even though you're quite plainly mistaken.

Posted by Matt at 12:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

Best customer service update ever? I mean granted, it's been about three weeks since I ordered this from them, and I was getting a little worried that I hadn't received a shipping notification from them, but this kinda makes up for it. :-)

Posted by Matt at 10:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I was going to stick this into the Linkery Dumpage section in the sidebar, but I think it's just too good:

Posted by Matt at 3:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Everybody's favourite half-decent WebTV service Joost has emerged from Beta all shiny and new and full of goodness. There's now literally hundreds of channels (well, about a hundred) and there's actually some decent stuff on some of them. Over 15,000 shows now, apparently.

The biggest news though, is that Joost is no longer invite-only. Which means that anyone who was previously looking for an invite from me can bugger off and just sign up themselves. Simply click on that there logo and sign yourself up to some webby-TV-torrenty-sharingy goodness.

Posted by Matt at 2:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

According to this widget, (we place a lot of authority in widgets 'round these here parts) Life Without Toast is a "C-List" entitity in the blogosphere, in the "middle authority" group. I'm quite chuffed that we have any kind of authority at all, even the middle kind. We're pretty much winging it pretty much all of the time.

[via D4D™]

Posted by Matt at 10:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Claire from gingerpixel.com posted a photo of a horse that she snapped in Mayo at the Breaffy House Hotel. She thought it was crying out for an LOL caption. I agreed.

Lets start a meme, blogosphere! Everybody must immediately make an LOL caption using the original photo, linked above. Go here if you need help with the caption.

Posted by Matt at 1:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)