Sheep…

There was this billboard for a newspaper a couple of weeks back that Aaron would have loved. It said, “Repeat after me… ‘I will not be a sheep’” and the picture accompanying it was the bottom half of a bunch of women on a train wearing ugly boots that are really fashionable here. I never got around to getting a picture of it, but it was really great.

It’s true, though. Folks here are such sheep. They want to be lead and told what to do – they don’t want to make the effort or take the risk of thinking for themselves. They want someone else to make decisions so they don’t have to. Let the government take their money and do whatever with it, as long as they have their free, crappy pseudo-healthcare and free public transportation after 65. Truthfully, the same sort of goes for all the extremists and zealots in the US. Everything that happens anywhere has to be examined, one event at a time. Just because George Bush said it doesn’t make it wrong (or right, if you are of that belief). Or just because it is convenient to your lifestyle doesn’t make it right. Or just because it’s easier to make crap up doesn’t make it right. I guess this goes for everywhere, not just the US and the UK.

THINK FOR YOURSELVES, PEOPLE!! Just because mass media says something is, doesn’t mean that it is, whether bent to the liberal or the conservative side!

Which leads to another random thought… {Hold on, I am veering off in a completely unrelated direction…}

Just because you write for Doctor Who does not mean that you can just invent history so that it suits your story. It’s science fiction, I know, but there are idiots out there who believe what they hear. (Remember the JFK load of crap – “Back, and to the left...”? Everyone believed that Kennedy was sitting directly behind Connaly because Oliver Stone said it, so it had to be true…) Anyway, for the future, make up whatever you want, that is perfectly fine. But, when it comes to history, at least do a little research. And shame on Russell T Davies for allowing it!

Okay, that’s it for now… Next time I will try not to just rant after not posting in a week and a half.

First day in the new office… (My whole group has just moved to South Bank, SE1 from Putney/Wandsworth, SW18 to be amongst other folks from our company…) Wow! I have to take pictures – We are right on the Thames, right next to the Royal National Theatre and I have this amazing view from my desk of the river itself and the little walk next to it. The office itself is okay – We have no access to a kettle or a coffee maker, so we have to pay a lot of money for coffee or tea from the canteen. But, hey, it’s really cool because I am finally working in actual London. On the one hand, Wandsworth was really nice and laid back, no tourists and the soda was cheaper. But, on the other, we are in the middle of everything here! It was nice – we had lunch today a café on the Thames, out in the sun.

An update on the kids....

Dingo seems depressed most of the time, but she has a lot of fun when we take her to the park. The problem we are having with her is that she is eating Ed’s litter. And I don’t mean in the way dogs normally do – just from the litter box. She also sticks her head in the bag of clean litter and munches on it. The problem is that we are using the World’s Best Cat Litter because it is really good stuff. It is made of corn, not clay, so he doesn’t track stuff all over the place and it doesn’t smell as bad and Ed likes it. But, the catch is, it apparently still tastes enough like corn to a big German Shepherd that she thinks it’s a treat. If we hide the bag, she goes into the litter box. We didn’t have this problem back home because we had a Litter Maid inside a cat tent and she couldn’t really get to it. I guess we are going to have to start hiding Ed’s litter box…

Abbie has gotten over her need to tell us that she is upset. She seems pretty happy most of the time, now. It’s funny, though – you can always tell when she’s done something bad because she starts doing this happy, butt-waggling dance. I guess she knows she’s about to be punished, and she wants to have some fun first. We try to take her with us when we do road trips because she loves the car so much. I think we need to see how she does on a train, too…

Emma is… Well, she’s Emma. She doesn’t really care where she is, as long as one of us is petting her or feeding her, or both. She is the only one who is actually really happy. I think that she is usually really hot because she has so much fur, and it’s a bit cooler here, so she is more comfortable.

Ed is another story all together. He seems to be okay, but ever since he got here, he started losing weight. We’ve taken him off diet food altogether and we have him on Senior food. It’s odd though, I really think he’s forgotten that he is a cat, in some ways. He begs for food, just like the dogs do. And it isn’t just when we have tuna or chicken or lamb. I was eating a hunk of bread the other day, and he begged for some, so I gave it to him expecting him to spit it out so Emma could eat it, and instead, Ed ate it himself! I think he’s going senile in his old age and really thinks he’s a dog.

All in all, they are doing well. They are adjusting, as much as possible. And, it will be easier when we get a better place where Dingo has a bit more room.

Ray and I went on a road trip yesterday... We just kind of wandered toward the southwest and ended up in a neat little seaside town called Minehead. It was really pretty. The tide was out when we got there, so we could walk a really good distance - several hundred yards - where the ocean would normally come in. That was pretty cool.

We took Abbie with us, and she had a ball! She loves riding in the car. She doesn't care where, just as long as she gets to go somewhere. I think she really enjoyed playing on the beach. And there were so many new smells for her, that she had her nose to the ground for most of the time.

Plus, on the way back, I told the GPS to take us home, but I forgot to tell it to stick to major roads. The result was that we ended up going down dirt roads that were just wide enough for one car, with hedgerows straight up either side, twisting and turning, going up and down. But, as harrowing as the roads were, we saw a bunch of really cool stuff. There were a lot of newborn lambs and a lot of dairy cows and some bird that I couldn't identify, but looked like a game bird. So, we had fun!

One of these days, I will post the Dover pictures, and the couple of shots I took at Minehead.

So, Ray and I went to see Kevin Smith last night, in London, at the Prince Charles. It was really great to see! He talked for 3 and a half hours about a lot of random stuff and it was really cool. Though the entire thing was really enjoyable, I have to say I very strongly agree with his idea of: Tear down the old crap and put up a mall.

Basically, someone asked what place he had visited that he hated the worst. He responded with a lot of stories, and making the point that he doesn't hate Britain, just that he'd rather be at home. He said he wasn't big on architecture, and this place is just really old. He made the joke that if a place more than 5 years old, then it's too old – tear it down and put up a mall. My take on it isn't that I mind the old stuff – It's really neat to look at. It's just that Ray and I are living in a very old house that is absolutely awful because it's so old. When you ride the train, you see all these abandoned buildings, rail stations, switching houses, and platforms. They are just left there to decay. It's as if they are unwilling to knock anything down, even if there is no plan for future use. It makes everything look old and decrepit and decaying. Just tear the crap down and build a mall or a gas station or a corner shop or something.

Anyway, that was way off my point. Kevin Smith was really cool to see.