that canadian girl

Latest adventures…

  • Thank you

    Thanks everyone for the great birthday wishes I got from all over the world by email, MSN and on here… Very kind of you all 🙂

    As a kid, I saw 24 as another milestone in life where you really become a grownup. The other milestones were, if I remember right… 16 because it’s the Little Mermaid’s age, 19 because it’s legal drinking age, and 24 because by that point, you have no choice but to act like a grownup.

    Now I’m thinking, tough luck, when I feel like acting like I’m 4 again, shed the stress of grown-up-ness and go count tulips in a field, I’ll do it! When I fancy doing a Michelle-style hippie dance in the rain in the backgarden, I’ll do it! And when the urge to sing Passe-Partout comes, no one will stop me!

    Maybe 24 is when you come to terms with your inner child and make sure it lives on. This is what Grand-Papa Raymond would want, isn’t it?

  • League of Gentlemen Live

    Friday was my dear other half Andrew’s birthday, and tomorrow it’s mine (as you can guess from the wishes in the shoutbox, hah!). As a gift for our birthdays, his parents gave us a pair of tickets to see the League of Gentlemen live at the Cambridge Corn Exchange at the end of October. I’ve always thought seeing those guys live would be good. Might just manage to see the movie before we go see the show, as it’ll be out on the 3rd of October.

    For those not familiar with the weird dark humour that is League of Gentlemen, have a look at their official site.

    For those who do…. Hello Daaaave! Wanna buy some pegs?

  • Google Maps tells too much?

    I’ve been meaning to blog about this for a while but it’s just sitting in a pile of “must write about”‘s, which means if I don’t do it now, it’ll never happen (just like I’ve been meaning to repaint the nasty lilac walls of our bedroom a better colour since we moved in 3 1/2 months ago…)

    The Register reports South Korea and Thailand’s concerns with Google Maps offering insight into their military installations. So of course, El Reg goes and posts screenshots of every potentially interesting and secret building on the face of the Earth!

    Go have a look for yourself at what all the fuss is about. Ahh, little RAF airplanes on the landing strip…

  • Brilliant Widgets

    I’ve found my fave few widgets:
    – One that allows you to blog directly from the Dashboard (WordPressDash)
    – A Sing that iTune! widget that goes and searches for lyrics to songs automatically, which is GREAT for me, since I always sing along anyways!

    Anyways, this is my first post directly from the Dashboard!

    Best regards,
    Vero S. Pepperrell
    Professional Ubergeek

  • The Mac Mini has arrived

    All I can say is OS X is nothing like patchy ol’ OS 9.2, the point at which I divorced Apple. But I’ve seen the error of my ways and I’m back to Mac now!

    Gotta love the tiny little Mac Mini, it’s a bit bigger than a piece of toast and about as thick as a medium Harry Potter book and it’s entirely white and silver with a tiny pinhole white light at the bottom right.

    Ok… too busy playing with it to blog more for now! But it’s the BEST birthday present ever! Woohoo!!

  • They predicted it

    The Onion said this a year ago.

    Gillette press release recently.

  • Google Blog Search

    Google has added a blog-specific search to its arsenal. It “defines blogs as sites that use RSS and other structured feeds and update content on a regular basis.”

    Search Engine Watch reviews it in more depth.

    The results haven’t convinced me yet, as I seem to have caught a lot of http://keyword-keyword-keyword.com URLs that lead to junky link farm blogs. I’m assuming that’ll improve over time, as this is only a beta. I’m still likely to check Technorati or a similar site if I’m desperate for blog content, or do a regular Google search which still yields a whole lot of blog content.

    Darren and company     aren’t too impressed either…

  • Mac OS through the years

    John Wells covers a lifetime of Mac operating systems – From the humble Apple Macintosh System 1.0 which booted from a disc to the ferocious OS X Tiger. Check out the screenshots for a real blast from the past!

    Certainly brings back memories for me, and certainly will for my dad as well. I belonged to the Apple camp from a very young age, playing Pong-like games on my grandpa’s first Mac in the late 80’s. I seem to remember the pre-MultiFinder days, either that or my simple child mind was satisfied with a single program opened at once. I’m guessing my first Mac would’ve been around System 5 or so though dad could confirm that…

    Then I clearly remember System 7, and the systematic labeling of everything that belonged to me in orange or blue (“Essential” or “Cool”). By that point, I was lucky enough to have my own Mac in my very own bedroom. I believe this would also have been the first time I plugged a modem in (after my grandpa handed his old Hayes 14,400bps modem over after realising it was too complicated to use to fax things to his Rotary friends), borrowed “The Great Canadian Handbook” at the local library and discovered the wonders of the National Capital FreeNet, as well as a truckload of BBS’es. Many years of dial-up, angry parents who pick up the phone to try and get me off the line, and a lot of long waits to download useless junk til 2 in the morning.

    [System 7 was also the era of the infamous “Jeu de chameau” aka Desert Trek. Many evenings were wasted playing that in the basement.]

    System 8 and OS 9 are a blur of frustratingly crashy systems, shared computers and a lot of sad Mac faces as extentions are savagely deleted by unknowing teeny little girls. At this point, I was also finishing High school and starting University, dealing with late nights and headaches while attempting to convert my PowerPoint presentations from Mac to PC without too much damage.

    And I went astray… Like a lost sheep, I went riding into the sunset with my brand new Windows computer, thinking it was the best thing since sliced bread… Ok maybe not but I knew it was “normality” and I wouldn’t struggle so much with compatibilty. I saw the first betas of OS X but at that point, my iMac had become an absolute ruin so I didn’t bother looking into it too much.

    And now, after about 4 years, I’m coming home to Mac. 🙂 Counting down the days til my precious new Mac Mini arrives! It’s a birthday present that brings me back to my good ol’ roots!

  • Scotch eggs explained

    They’re a popular snack here. Don’t know what they are? Ricky Gervais explains.

    (Found via Mr. Patto)

  • Not everybody likes Clarkson, but everybody likes pie

    Clarkson may have a lot of fans thanks to his great sense of humour and a taste for fast cars (and his big hair), but he’s apparently not pleasing everyone. Thankfully, Jeremy was a good sport and was heard to say “great shot” after being splattered in the face with a custard pie.

    Jeremy Clarkson & the pie

    Mr Clarkson was nominated by the School of Technology [at Oxford Brookes University] for his championing of high standards in engineering.

    Shortly before he was assaulted, Mr Clarkson, who lives in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, said: “I do have a disregard for the environment. I think the world can look after itself and we should enjoy it as best we can.”

    But local councillor Elise Benjamin said: “We keep hearing about the damage caused by yob culture and yet he is a yob culture advocate.” Protester Denise Lock said Mr Clarkson “makes a living out of offending people. While other universities are rewarding the likes of Nelson Mandela, Brookes is rolling out the carpet for a dangerous buffoon, ” she added.