I recently cleared out my digital camera’s memory card and here were some of the gems I found:

My sister with the little birthday cake Rodd got for her at Tesco. Yes, that’s a tea light on top. We didn’t have any other birthday candles. And please disregard the large bottle of Gordon’s Gin on the table beside her. I, uh, swear we don’t drink a lot. Or something.

Do not stare directly at the German’s legs! Blindness may ensue. This is my friend Christian, who Snookums and I call Sid (for various geeky reasons). He apparently lost some bet and as punishment had to wear this kilt all the way across London to pick up a girl. As compensation for embarrassing him, here’s a link to his extremely helpful PHP website.

Here’s my hair following the first of the “Intense Red” dye jobs. I get it done about every six weeks, although I really should get it done more often these days (my hair grows fast). Reds are also very tricky to maintain, as they tend to fade quickly and the color can wash out. I finally wised up and got some expensive yet effective color preserving shampoos. It was so funny when I went home in June, because half my family didn’t even recognize me.

There’s my sister again. This was from our ill-fated trip to the UK Blogger meet-up. See, I told you we were there!

So we dodged another dreaded computer virus. Nice. I’m afraid I have to object, though, to the picture Yahoo! includes with their ‘Code Red’ article. Why a shot of little Chinese kids using a computer? If you didn’t read the accompanying caption, you’d probably think these were the miscreants responsible for the worm. Very manipulative, that.

Ack! It’s 9:15 am and I’m still sitting here unshowered. The ADSL is up, though, and I couldn’t resist the opportunity to do my first supa-fast blog posting. We think BT might finally be fixing the damn thing, seeing as how we’re finally getting about 60% uptime as opposed to the 5% we got the last few weeks. Of course, it dies every time I get near it so we’ll see if this post goes through or not…

“We need a Customer Associate in Aisle 9. Bring some hot water and towels.”

Ohhhhh, so when I say it’s hot everybody thinks I’m complaining, but when the Queen Mother goes down with heat exhaustion suddenly it’s a national emergency? I bet she has fans up the wazoo. Me, I’m sleeping with the windows open and offering my body up willingly to the flying ants.

Did I mention the yoga? Okay, so last Friday it’s “Customer Appreciation Day” at my gym so I drag my sister along for a yoga class, which neither of us have never done before. Here’s a minute-by-minute recap of my actual thoughts during the experience:

• 7:55 pm Okay, I can do this. How bad can it be, right? There aren’t any weights or steps or machinery. It’s just your body. Dude, this is gonna be cake.
• 8:05 Hmmm… the stretching is interesting. I’m enjoying it so far.
• 8:10 Ooh, this child’s pose is pretty nice.
• 8:20 Dammit, man, I have no balance. It is physically impossible for me to stand on my tippy toes with my arms in the air and then lower myself to my knees while balanced en pointe. Man, this is hard.
• 8:25 No. No friggin’ way. I can’t remember that! There’s, like, 17 steps in that sequence! My back feels like it’s gonna break every time I try the cobra. And I can’t hold the damn downward dog for more than 2 seconds without nose-diving onto the mat.
• 8:30 Oh God. Another hour. Please go faster. Why can I suddenly not stand on one leg?
• 8:45 I’m sweating bullets. I’m in serious pain. My sister is laughing at me. I HATE YOGA. Only 45 minutes left to go.

I’m pretty sure that this is the point when I blacked out.

• 9:20 Ahhh… Now this is the part I like. Lying in the dark and listening to white noise. I might fall asleep.
• 9:30 We’ve been lying here for 10 minutes. I’m so bored I could die. Even the relaxation in yoga is difficult. I’m never doing this again.

I dunno… maybe I just dislike all organized exercise classes. Sorry, B. I gave it a shot.

Peter Buck has plead ‘not guilty’ to those air raid charges. He has not, however, addressed my charge that he’s suddenly become the spitting image of Steven Spielberg.

Training Over! I am now an XML/XSLT goddess. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming…

Disconnected thoughts:

• Happy birthday to my Snookums. I’ll be making him Bruce Bogtrotter’s chocolate cake tonight.
• I’m on the third day of my four day training session. Normal blogging will resume on Wendesday, probably, unless BT get off their ass and fix our home ADSL line.
• It’s too damn hot. I just spent my lunch hour traipsing around Hammersmith in search of an electric fan, only to discover that the tiny supply was been completely wiped out by the overwhelming demand. The Internet is my last hope of surviving this heat wave.

U.K. Survivor is Over!
SHE DID IT! Holy crap, Charlotte the Harlotte won the million in stunning fashion! She actually garnered all seven votes from the jury! I’d say more, but I’m gonna be late for my training if I don’t run…