that canadian girl

Latest adventures…

  • The Purity of the English language

    After having a semi-serious discussion on IRC with a melting pot of English degree students, English as second language Scandinavians and self-centered Americans on whether Instant Messaging systems like IRC and MSN Messenger are responsible for the deterioration of the English language, this blog entry on Chocolate and Vodka made me laugh.

    “The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.”
    – James D. Nicoll

    “English is the result of Norman men-at-arms attempting to pick up Saxon barmaids and is no more legitimate than any of the other results.”
    – H. Beam Piper

    Update 04/01/05: I watched StarSpell, a celebrity spelling bee contest for charity on TV while preparing dinner last night, and it proved this on so many levels; Italian, German, French, Latin… at least 4-5 words per each round of ten were very heavily borrowed from another language. Ah well, it was still fun to watch!

  • How would you like your eggs done?

    Cool egg cups

    These are the ultimate coolest egg cups! Little hippie van eggcups with a surfboard-come-salt shaker. They’re from Free Spirit in Brighton, and Andrew’s sister and her hubby bought them for us for Christmas.

    Today was their christening with the first successful boiled eggs in a while… I seem to have lost my ability to make perfect soft boiled eggs. But they’ve inspired me, with a little help from Delia, I’ll make good boiled eggs again!

  • Allo petite fille!

    Véro à 2 ans

    C’est moi à presque deux ans, en août ’83. J’arrive pas à me rappeler où on est dans la photo mais je devais être contente de nourrir les “Bambis”. Peut-être que Maman se rappelle d’où je suis dans la photo!

    Ajout: Maman dit que c’était au Parc Safari, à Hemmingford, Québec

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    This is me at the age of almost two, in August ’83. Can’t remember where I am in this photo but I must have been happy to feed the Bambis. Maybe mom can help me remember where we were for that photo?

    Update: Mom says it was at Parc Safari, in Hemmingford, Québec

  • Kent to be WiFied too!

    Well I’ll be damned! I was amazed by Canada’s plans to make Kamloops a WiFied area, but the same is happening much closer to where I live as well!

    In an exciting article about the upcoming technological changes we should expect in 2005, the BBC announces that Kent (where Andrew’s parents live!) could be the lucky county:

    This wireless technology can boost data transmission speeds up to 75 megabits per second and works over distances of up to 30 miles. Kent is likely to be the site of the UK’s first Wimax network which is due to go live in 2005 and it could be the way that rural areas get high-speed net access.

    I’d be thrilled if I had easy WiFi access on my Pocket PC no matter where I am! It’ll be interesting to see how the project develops in comparison with the Kamloops experiment.

  • Oh yeah…

    Forgot to mention, we had a fantastic New Year’s eve. We organised to have dinner with our downstairs neighbours, Jerome & Nicky. We started around 8pm with cheese fondue, followed by a chinese broth fondue consisting of fresh salmon, tuna, prawns and steak dunked in a really fragrant broth.

    Later on, we went out for some fresh air and fed the leftover bread from the cheese fondue to the ducks, waking them up in the process… Andrew nearly pulled off an “About A Boy” by whacking a duck on the head with some of the dry bread.

    We then rushed back indoors, realizing it was nearly midnight and time to watch the Big Ben event on tv. We followed that by a nice big slice of Bakewell tart lovingly made by Nicky (and a bit of help from her mum!) and a little jig on the Dance mat for a laugh. Around 1:30-2am, we decided it was time for bed, and headed back to our apartment. I love being able to get home on my socks…

    Of course, the late food, the quantity of food, and the sugar in the Bakewell tart made for a rather restless sleep but I still count this as one of our most successful fondue nights and a nice way to spend New Year’s eve.

    I hope everyone else’s New Year’s eve was good too!

  • Welcome to the New Year

    I hope you’ve all had a fantastic Christmas time, and are feeling ready to attack 2005 with a renewed energy! We’ve probably all have a few pounds to lose now with all those fantastic meals our mothers have cooked us…

    As you may (or may not) have noticed, I’ve slapped a new coat of paint on my blog. (Read: Andrew did it for me) A bit of lively colour to start the new year in beauty! (If you don’t see the new colours, then press Ctrl and Refresh at the same time and it should do the job!)

    I’ve been taking it easy the last few days as far as blogging goes… Enjoying my time off work more than you’d imagine. Playing with my new gadgets, relaxing, reading, sleeping lots… But on Tuesday, it’s back to work for the run-up to the Sales Conference at EuroDisney Paris starting the 16th. I’m really looking forward to the three days of total freedom I’ll have in Paris after the conference ends on the Friday!

    So here’s to a great 2004 and hopefully, an even better 2005!

  • You just can't beat having a personal jukebox

    So, I’ve already talked about the Pocket PC Andrew got me for Christmas, a gadget that never ceases to impress me!

    As Andrew and I are both technology fiends, I got him a blue iPod mini. He had already sorted his music by category so it didn’t take long to copy music over. The most painful period was the hour-long first battery charge on Christmas morning! Since then, it’s been amazing to use!

    ipod and itrip

    What would be great to use with it is the Griffin iTrip, a mini radio transmitter that can be used to broadcast a short-distance radio signal from the iPod mini. For example, the iPod could be in your pocket or in the glove compartment plugged into the iTrip, and the radio station can then be set to receive the mini-pirate-station broadcast. Unfortunately, these are illegal in the UK and we wouldn’t *dare* go against the law, would we?

    I can’t imagine it’d be easy to use in London, since there are an insane amount of pirate radio stations on top of all the legitimate ones. It would work a whole lot better in places like Menorca where there’s only a few radio stations. The quality is apparently better than any tape adaptors once a good “empty” space in the radio frequencies is found, and it’s certainly less hassle and wires! To those who live outside of the UK (or the Brits who can handle putting their morals in the backseat for a while…), it’s a fantastic cheap gadget!

    Oooh how I love my technogadgets! 🙂

  • MmmMm the perfect tea

    I think I’m in love with the Twinings tea with Vanilla and Coconut. It’s sooo nice, I just love the bit of flavour it adds to my good ol’ cup o’ tea! It also means I don’t put any sugar in my tea, which can’t be bad! I’m sure the true blue tea addicts would think it’s crappy but it matters not to me!

    I heard about the Celestial Seasonings Vanilla Chai tea which I’d love to try, but I don’t think we can get it here! If anyone in Canada feels like sending me a couple of boxes, it’ll be very welcome!

    I’m addicted to vanilla flavoured everything again… It’s a love story between vanilla and I!

  • White bread sucks

    Ughh we bought fresh white bread today and I thought I’d really enjoy having a nice big slice with some butter. Turns out after eating it, it feels like a big ball of flour and dough in my stomach.

    Definitely going to stick to wholegrain bread… I can’t stand white bread anymore! :S

    But on the other hand, we’ve got some yummy fresh fruits, nice tea and what we need to make really nice homemade soup! Time to eat healthy to make up for the Christmas week and all the indulgences of the weeks before.

  • Pocket Goodness

    Oh where to start with this amazing gadget?

    I’ve had my Pocket PC (Dell Axim X30 High) for a few days now, and so far, I’ve found a few good bits of software. I found a fantastic Today Screen creator and created a nice cherry blossom theme for it, setup a couple of email accounts, used MSN Messenger and found a handful of good games. Over the next few weeks, I’ll need to decide which ones are worth paying for, as most aren’t freeware.

    I’m still looking for:

  • A good screenshot app
  • Lots of good ebooks
  • Good little plugins for the Today Screen
  • A better list-making app than Listette

    • I’ll also setup my blog to have a PocketPC-friendly version, and a way to blog from it, over the next little while, so I can post while I’m out of town. So far, I’ve streamed movie trailers, streamed live webcam and music, surfed the interweeb a-plenty, IRC’ed… What I really like is that when at home, it hooks onto our wireless network easily, and synchs with the main computer without a glitch! What can I say? I love mobile techmology!!!

    I could use some recommendations on good apps and useful links, so fire away!