that canadian girl

Latest adventures…

  • Educating the masses about scams

    How could the masses be educated about scams such as the ones described by the BBC today?

    One in 20 UK internet users say they have lost money through online scams, research into spam emails suggests.

    Almost half say they have received so-called phishing emails aimed at tricking them into revealing details like online banking passwords. Other frauds include paying for items which never arrive and sending cash following a demand from a bogus email.

    Of the 1% who had lost money through phishing, 53% were not compensated by their bank, the AOL survey found. A further 11% say they are still waiting for compensation.

    So many people seem to be simply unaware of the problem, trusting emails that come through as long as they “look” vaguely trustworthy. PayPal account detail confirmations, bank details confirmations, Nigeria 419 scams, the lot…

    So what’s the answer? How can we educate parents, children, naive friends?

    Some people believe they’re doing the right thing when sending mass forwards to friends warning them about scams while generously creating ripe email addresses lists to be harvested later by a less-than-honest moneymaker and wasting their friends’ time and mailbox space.

    The best way to avoid viruses that email all your contacts on your behalf is to install a good and regularly updated anti-virus software, and a good dose of common sense. No bank or other service will randomly email you to ask you to confirm your banking details, especially not through a third-party website!

    New deception techniques are developed everyday to trick people as it is a lucrative business, and for this reason, common sense remains the best weapon against scammers.

  • She sees the future

    Believing in the future of blogs back in 1999.

  • I AM TEH GAY

    yes, officially, i am teh gay.

    poohpoooooh

    [EDITED: Sweet lord, pooheaded by my own husband… How grownup of him! Andrew, you’re going to pay for this! 😛 ]

  • Have you tried Google Maps yet?

    Have you spotted your house yet?

    I’ve tried it with my Canadian address and my parents’ house is *just* off the map by about a square because it’s too far from the biggest city, but I can see my elementary school a few streets away. I’ve tried my current and soon-to-be British addresses and unfortunately, we’re not worthy of satellite maps, only old-style drawn maps.

    Otherwise, when looking for random American locations or big Canadian cities, it certainly is entertaining! Still no luck in finding llamas though, which is a bit of a dissapointment to a few of us…

  • And the process begins

    Six boxes packed, one IKEA chair taken apart, a couple of heads scratched trying to decide where to pile up boxes and a vow to keep the computers out of boxes as long as possible.

    This is the current situation in preparing to move to our new house. We’re even being good and labelling boxes: “BOOKS – BLADDY HEAVY!”

    On another note, working in publishing is a blessing and a curse! I’ve got so many fantastic books to read… but I’ve also got so many books to pack and move to the new house now! At least, work will be an infinite source of packing materials for the next few weeks…

  • Of Flying Cars and Black Humour…

    Of Flying Cars…

    I had to read this headline twice before I believed it: A car crashed into the top floor of a house after hitting the kerb and went flying up in the air! Now, if that doesn’t make you feel unsafe in your own home, I don’t know what will!

    They need those pillars that can stop any car, just like in Extreme Makeover: Home Edition… but they might need to rise up to the first floor to stop flying BMWs!

    … And Black Humour

    The new Nick Hornby book, A Long Way Down, “attempts to bring humour and optimism to the subject of suicide.” The story was inspired by Beachy Head, an English location notorious for being a suicide spot. Hornby stresses that the book tackles suicide in a serious way, but finds humour in the situations his characters are put in.

    Penguin’s blurb describes it as follows: “Funny, sad and deeply moving, Nick Hornby’s A Long Way Down is a novel that asks some of the big questions: about life and death, strangers and friendship, love and pain, and whether a group of losers, and pizza, can really see you through a long, dark night of the soul.”

    I can already recognize Hornby’s old humour that Hugh Grant brought to life in About A Boy a few years ago, so I’ll most likely read this one. Most likely holiday reading, a tough topic lightened by a bit of dark humour.

  • One for the girls

    Brought to you by Owen, the official joke forwarder in the office:

    Once upon a time,
    in a land far away,
    a beautiful, independent
    self-assured princess
    happened upon a frog as she sat,
    contemplating ecological issues
    on the shores of an unpolluted pond
    in a verdant meadow near her castle.
    The frog hopped into the princess’ lap
    and said: Elegant Lady,
    I was once a handsome prince,
    until an evil witch cast a spell upon me.
    One kiss from you, however,
    and I will turn back
    into the dapper, young prince that I am
    and then, my sweet, we can marry
    and set up housekeeping in your castle
    with my mother,
    where you can prepare my meals,
    clean my clothes, bear my children,
    and forever
    feel grateful and happy doing so.
    That night,
    as the princess dined sumptuously
    on lightly sauteed frog legs
    seasoned in a white wine
    and onion cream sauce,
    she chuckled and thought to herself:
    I don’t f…ing think so.

  • Already a third of a year gone by

    Can you believe a third of 2005 has already flown by? It’s Spring, time for Spring cleanings and revivals, changes and rebirths.

    To say the least, change and change again has been the general theme of my life for the past year. Not in a bad way at all, it’s all positive change. All of it could’ve been avoided had we preferred to sit on our butts and stay in our small flat, not get married (well there could’ve been an issue there with my visa running out but ya know…), not change jobs, etc… But we chose to bite the bullet and go for the whole lot to reach that point in life where we’ll feel we’ve fulfilled at least a few of our life goals, like buying our first house.

    I don’t think we’ll regret any of it, but at the moment, I feel a bit overwhelmed by everything and I’m looking forward to sitting down on our new chocolate brown corner sofa in the new house and being able to say “I’m home, we’ve achieved this together and we bloody well deserve it!” But that’s not quite within reach yet, a few more things need to be sorted out and a seriously huge Spring cleaning has to happen before we move!

    Life’s just too short to sit on my (fat) ass and not take advantage of what’s being thrown my way. To think, if you’d asked me 5 years ago what I thought I’d be doing at the age of 23, I probably would’ve said working in Montreal, living still a rather studenty lifestyle with friends and doing a freshly post-grad job! I would never have expected to be married, living in the UK, buying a house and working in quite challenging jobs!

    I just need to learn to channel that stress into positive energy a bit more!

  • Guess-a-google

    Try this little Guess-A-Google game!

    I got 261. What’s your score?

  • UNBELIEVABLE weekend!

    Time to share one of the secrets from my “Wish I Could” post from Thursday.

    Friday was a day off work, because we were heading down to Andrew’s parents’ house for a secretly-planned Birthday weekend for my mum-in-law Kathy. The reason I couldn’t post is because she didn’t know we were coming down for it, and anyways none of us knew where we were going except for Roy, who had stealthily organised the whole weekend!

    We were picked up at 11am in a white stretch limo, drank champagne while on the way to Southampton to… get on a weekend cruise that would take us to Zeebrugge in Belgium!!! We arrived at the port and were on board shortly after, having a bite to eat and visiting the different parts of the cruiseship, the P&O Cruises’ Aurora.

    We had our Friday evening drinks and dinner in the Alexandria Restaurant, served by the most polite and well-oiled team of waiters I’ve ever seen. In the evening, we had a choice of shows and places to go to, so Andrew and I chose to go see “There’s No Business Like Show Business”, a medley of popular Broadway tunes. It was a great show, and I just loved it! I kept forgetting we were on a ship in the middle of the Channel waters!

    Saturday morning, we got up bright and early for a tasty breakfast in the Medina Restaurant, where we could see Zeebrugge’s port. After breakfast, we got into a taxi to go visit the Flemish city of Brugge, approximately 10 minutes away from our cruiseship. We went on a boat visit of the canals with a rather entertaining guide and saw many of the city’s landmarks from an interesting angle! Brugge’s old buildings certainly puts the “oldest” Canadian buildings to shame; a hospital that was used until 10 years ago was built in the early 1100’s! That’s nearly a thousand years old!

    BruggeAfter our leisurely trip on the canals, we walked around the city squares and one way streets. We stopped by a few chocolateries and picked up some lovely choccies for our coworkers, looked inside a few ancient beer stores, then settled in a café for a few Belgian brews. When Kathy and Lisa headed off to walk around the squares, the boys and I ordered some oysters, mussels and, inevitably, some frites with mayonnaise. A few brews later, it was time to head back to the cruise for an afternoon of relaxing jacuzzi sessions, naps, cocktails of the day and furtive snacks. Andrew jimmied the doors between our cabin balconies open so we had one long balcony connecting our three adjacent rooms while getting ready for dinner.

    Lobster!In the evening, it was the special dressed up dinner so we all got dolled up. The boys looked great in suits, and may I see, the ladies looked lovely too! We headed to some welcome cocktails in the Carmen’s bar, followed by dinner. I had a mixed plate of starters (duck terrine, smoked salmon with caviar, parma ham with melon and strawberry, thai prawn salad with quail’s egg and red caviar… I felt like a queen!), followed by a crab & sweetcorn soup, pink champagne sorbet, and for main course, a meltingly fresh lobster tail. The boys had a fillet of beef on a bed of bubble & squeak. For pudding, I had a peach and almond tart. What can I say, it was a meal made for the gods! (Look at the number of utensils Roy had… You had to be superhuman to eat the lot too!)

    Afterwards, we headed to the Curzon Theatre, where we’d seen a Broadway show the previous night, but this time, to see Roy Walker, a stand-up comedian and the host of Catchphrase, a show Andrew remembers well from his childhood.

    After the show, we popped by the Masquerade bar for a little dancing (“Show me the way to Amarillo”, anyone?) then headed to bed. This morning, we went for the classic P&O breakfast and prepared our bags to return home. We waved goodbye to the cruiseship as we got picked up by our limo and returned to Kent, where we came back home, still in disbelief at how amazing this weekend was!

    This is what I call travelling in style and comfort! So here are all the photos of the weekend…