(no story today – this is the part of the book where you’ve been caught reading under the covers with a flashlight and are told to go to sleep or you’ll get beaten with a rattan switch kept hanging in the kitchen specifically for beating purposes) (.. that may have just been me)

It’s been a really rough week ’round these parts; fanciful attempts at story writing aside. On Tuesday, 10 people were laid off from our office in Vancouver, and everyone is taking really hard – people are upset, worried, angry, confused, hurt. It’s tense and sad in here right now, and I feel terrible for those who were let go because they were utterly blindsided by it. I wish there was more I could do than feel bad and swear, but ..

If you know of any Lower Mainland companies looking for an HR hero, an awesome tech support manager, a rock n’ roll sys admin OR an Android-loving IT guy, please let me know – I’ll pass along the info.

The stress of the week has been manifesting itself in the form of NO SLEEP. I’m little more than a painted zombie right now; two days of terrible eating and no rest has left me exhausted and drooling. I’m looking forward to the weekend because I really need the downtime (and also I want to bake cookies) – hell, I’d settle for a nap. Maybe when my head brains come back, I’ll remember where I left my glasses. I have (8) backup pairs, but the ones I lost were my FAVOURITE. I hope they show up. How will people know I’m a hipster if I have no black-rimmed glasses? For shame.

ZZZZ

I couldn’t decide which video-game-reference-that-no-one-will-get to go to work as, so I was going to cop out and just stick my favourite sequined devil horns on top of my head and call it good. When I was getting dressed, though – a flash of inspiration. To the internet! I did the e-quivalent (get it) of flipping a coin, and polled Twitter: polka dots or stripes? The vote was 12 to 1 for dots, so I put together a last minute outfit and am currently at work dressed as a polka dot princess. Behold!

wanna play connect the dots?

I was able to put together a complete outfit of dots on things in my closet: my black and white polka dot dress, a reversible dot cardigan, a scarf, a necklace, a giant flower with dotted tulle, and ridiculous socks:

hee hee

Throw in a polka dot umbrella and iPhone case, and I had an outfit. I would have had a purse too, if I wasn’t already late this morning. When I got to the office, I raided the supply cabinet for stick-on dots and did up my tiara and glasses. I already had a polka dot mug for Diet Coke on my desk and a dot change purse from Harrods .. I could not be more dotted if I tried. Not bad for stuff I was able to pull out of my regular closet rotation.

I mildly regretting not slutting it up and going to some sort of Halloween party this weekend, but we ended up having all the fun ever. Evan is in town, and we’ve been working hard on him to get him to relocated to Vancouver from Toronto. He was Josh’s roommate in Calgary, and he went the wrong way when we all left town. We’ve already decided where he should live and who he should have sex with; all that’s left is the actual move. Easy!

Friday night was Fancy Taco Friday, and I dragged everyone to Chronic Tacos for delicious times and inappropriate conversation. After several hours of taco goodness and panties, we went back to Sparta to catch up on old times. On Saturday, they all went hiking at Lighthouse Park for the day while I cleaned the house in my underwear, then it was off for sushi. I hate sushi, but I enjoy hanging out – especially as we were going to be breaking some laws afterwards. With a bag of beer and fireworks we ended up on Third Beach blowing stuff up and putting on a show for the party boat in the inlet. It was excellent destructive fun, but we are the worst hooligans ever – after we used all the fireworks, we carefully combed the beach for all the debris and packed up our garbage and empty beer cans. Yes, we’ll defy local authority and commit some petty misdemeanors, but we’ll also clean it all up when we’re done. Take that, society! We are thumbing our sanitized noses at you!

we made trouble!

Josh and Evan stayed downtown while the rest of us called it a night on account of being old and sober, but the next morning we met up for brunch. The plan was Tomahawk, but J&S had to bail because of forgotten family in town – so I pulled rank and demanded we go to Deacon’s Corner. I reasoned that I had a lousy dinner the night before (I really don’t like Japanese food) and I’m not crazy about Tomahawk breakfasts (I can’t eat the bacon!) .. so if I’m going to pay for another meal, I want something I’ll really enjoy. My infallible logic won out, and breakfast was awesome. We took Evan back to his hotel to sleep off the rest of his Saturday night, and Ed and I did some errands before going home for an evening of hockey and Chinese food. It was the first real weekend I’ve had in Vancouver in a long time, and it was a really great one. It felt just like old times, which were the few times in Calgary that were actually fun – I needed that.

Evan flies home today, but I think we showed him a sufficiently good time that he’ll come this way for good. We’ve plied him with stories of our ridiculously mild winters and bountiful lusty ladies, so that should sway things in our favour. Yay for people relocated to Awesome Town!

they're all so YOUNG

It’s very cold in my office, and I’ve been cuddling up to my space heater all morning. I was slightly worried about the radiation aspect of the heat blasting from my lil’ unit, so I was very pleased to find an alternative source of heat: RIGHTEOUS IRE!

I am no longer cold, because I am Outraged on behalf of Tech Support. RAWR! MY WRATH IS FEARSOME TO BEHOLD!

This is a totally energy-efficient way to warm yourself up – get mad at things! Social injustice! Being the 99%! Being the 1% and feeling totally persecuted about your riches! Wedgies! Everyone hates wedgies; get mad about them! I swear, it’ll warm you right the fuck up!

Less than 6 hours until FANCY TACO FRIDAY. Hooray!

Yeah, your new iPhone 4S is great and all, but it’s so last week. Check out MY new phone:

it makes me, like, twice as cool as you

It’s the new Apple iPhone 8S: reversible, four camera, twice the Angry Birds power, and sleeker than shit. You’ve probably never heard of it before, and they’re super hard to get – you have to know the right people in the right circles. Yours is cute, though. I see them everywhere.

After some crunchy numbers and a great deal of waffling, I Made Up My Mind and upgraded to the 4s through Rogers. As incredible as having an unlocked iPhone in Europe was, I don’t think I’ll be going on any international trips between now and next September (and the iPhone 5’ll probably be out by then anyway). I did some research into getting a US SIM card slash pay-as-you-go data plan, but it’s not as easy in the States as it was in London and would be really expensive. That’s the only reason I would need an unlocked phone until next year, and I can live without it – I still have my cheap US roaming add-on, and there’s always wi-fi.

Also, if I sell my iPhone 4 (ps: buy my iPhone 4!), the upgrade will cost me $18.63 out of pocket. That’s much better than the $450+ I’d be looking at if I bought an unlocked phone from Apple. We’re in lock down savings mode – Xmas is coming, and Josh and Shan’s wedding is in April, and Ed suggested we go to London for our Ten Slash Fifteen next year. I need money for all those things, so I went the smart route. It is fun to be smart (sometimes). I will celebrate with tacos!

Today is made of good.

• Pictures taken: 2428
• Tube stations visited: 22
• Times we went the wrong way on the tube: 0
• Times we looked the wrong way on the street: all of them
• Swarthy Italian men hitting on me in Harrods: 1
• Pub visits: 5
• Bottles of still water with a splash of fruit enjoyed: 15 or so (that stuff is awesome)
• Viral infections: 2
• Dirty looks my boobs got: 17
• Salacious looks my boobs got: 9
• Orders of chips eaten: 8
• Bags purchased (don’t look at this Ed): 4
• Times Cleo drew blood: 3
• 5am taxi rides: 2 (goddamn many)
• Swearing at Google Maps for showing the British Museum as being at the location of the British Library: 59
• Offers of cuddling on planes: 1
• Pity meals served in pubs: 2
• “The End is Nigh” signs seen: 1
• How much we loved London: 7 million
• Foxes seen: 1 (they’re like British raccoons!)
• Pairs of tights I purchased in the end: 9
• How much I disliked the small horrible child sitting in front of me on the plane ride home: 40

• Men in Paris riding a 50cc scooter with a cigarette hanging out: 1
• Stereotypical snooty French waiters: 1
• Times peed on the top of the Eiffel Tower: 3
• Mega souvenirs bought: 1
• Old women I nearly pushed over on the ET because I had Metrotown Rage: 3
• Che Guevara posters for sale on the Seine: 6
• Times accosted in the Paris train station by annoying young women shoving petitions in our faces: 28 (they were fucking everywhere)

BONG BONG BONG

Friday was our last full day in London, which was depressing for a number of reasons. We didn’t want our trip to be over so soon, and there was so much more we wanted to do .. but we decided to make the most of our time and headed out (slightly later than we had on previous days; Paris wore us out).

Our Friday plan was to have a proper Full English Breakfast, then hit up the British Museum to eyeball some more history. I also wanted to pick up some more tights (shut up), so we tubed back to Covent Gardens for tights and plates of beans. I personally skipped the beans in exchange for additional mushrooms, and gave Heather my bacon for her sausages. I had sadly discovered earlier in the week that British bacon did NOT agree with my insides, so I wisely passed it over so I wouldn’t spend the next several hours with a bad stomach ache. Sated and full of beans/meats, we consulted the internet and made our way to the closest station to the museum; King’s Cross.

If you’re familiar with London, you may have  noticed something really wrong with that last sentence. In some sort of dastardly Machiavellian plan, Google Maps decided to give us fantastically wrong information about the location of the museum; telling us it was by King’s Cross and not three blocks from the damn place we ate breakfast, in Covent Gardens. For some reason, Google shows the British Library as being the British Museum – and while books are awesome and stuff, we didn’t want to be there. We lost several hours on the snafu, but it wasn’t all bad: King’s Cross is the location of Platform 9 and 3/4, which we found on the way to the Not Museum:

domo is off to fight dementors!

We figured out the map issue, swore at Google Maps a lot, then made our way back to where we started; finally arriving at the British Museum. Luckily, the two museums we were planning to go to were open late on Friday nights, so we sat outside for a bit to rest our feet and people watch before going inside.

The British Museum was incredible. After staring around the Great Court in awe, we made a beeline for the Rosetta Stone and the Egyptian exhibit.

great court is great

You can easily spend days upon days in the museum (and you should – it’s free!), but the website has guides for 1 and 3-hour tours that take you through the highlights. We did the 1-hour tour, and while Heather and Renee admired the artifacts and history, I took pictures of nudity:

ancient roman wang!

bathing aphrodite!

ANCIENT GRECIAN CENTAUR PUNCH

In addition to admiring all the old stone wangs, we also saw mummies, the Japanese exhibit, incredible pieces of religious imagery and jewellery, and so much more. We bought some souvenirs at the gift shop (including my favourite new bag ever), then set off on our next adventure: a late lunch, and the next museum.

The Victoria and Albert Museum is open until 10pm on Friday nights, and unbeknownst to us, is THE hot spot for London’s hippest people. We felt drastically out of place among all the beautiful ones, but quickly forgot our awkwardness when we looked at the exhibits within. The V&A might be my favourite place in the world, and I desperately wish we had more time to explore – as it was, the 3+ hours we spent wasn’t nearly enough.

the john madejski garden at night

a mosaic within a mosaic

more old timey wangs

and one in green just for fun!

the building was damaged during wwii

london why are you so pretty

If I lived in London, I’d explore every inch of the V&A. We got to see the Power of Making exhibit, lounge on the giant carpet field in the Raphael room, the amazing sculptures and mosaic pieces .. and for every stunning exhibit we walked through, there were four more that we didn’t have time to see. Even looking at the V&A website is making me sad, because I’m realizing just how much more there was to look at – I need to go back to London. Who’s with me? Let’s go!

After valiantly not buying the entire beautiful gift shop, we sadly headed back to the house to pack our bags – it was time to go home. The cab was called for 5am, we frantically traded suitcase contents to come under the baggage limits, and went to sleep after an amazing week in London.

heather, renee and kimli

I was reading comments when I saw this out of the corner of my eye:

how odd

It’s not that someone was searching for that particular set of words – rather, that they searched for the entire thing. It’s the middle section of the last story on this page. Why would you search for it word for word? Did someone (other than me) memorize the story for hilarious times? Very strange, and still funny after all these years. Gooey cheese fingers! HAH!

There seems to be a mistake – I have to work today. That can’t be right, as I am a millionaire playboy who has adventures for a living. Why does everyone insist that I am just a lonely drone with a notepad and a picture phone (whose nectar is a collection of transgressions and subversive flaws)? Damnit.

domo, you so international!

The tower itself was awesome. There are multiple levels that cost multiple moneys for you to climb, but we had purchased our tickets in advance and had full passes to go up to the top. And we did! We spent a goodly amount of time up there exploring and marveling over the epic views of the city:

paris as far as the eye can see

Paris itself is beyond immense, and kind of scary – I’m not used to that much urban sprawl, even if it dates back 400 years or so. It made me feel very lucky to live where I do; I don’t think I could handle the congestion of Paris for very long.

We made the most of our time on top of the tower. They had a Champagne Bar up there for people to buy incredibly expensive glasses of champagne to toast themselves way up high; I think we all ended up taking pictures for tourists while they posed on top of the world. I didn’t have any champagne myself; I had a bottle of Diet Coke (from London; Paris has Coke Light ewww) and happily drank that instead. Surprisingly, there’s a bathroom on top of the Eiffel Tower – so we all gleefully peed on the tower, and I graffiti’d just a little tiny bit (shhhh):

don't tell on me! (click to big)

We bought some cheesy souvenirs in the Eiffel Tower shop, then headed down to find our bus – we were off to the Notre Dame to soak ourselves in history!

The ride over on the bus was a little insufferable. We decided to stay in the bus this time instead of sitting up top because we were freezing (and Heather was sick – she came down with the flu that morning but was determined to soldier onward), and we were joined by a very loud family from the US. The three kids were obnoxious and the parents couldn’t care less – and, after the middle child asked for the fourth time in a row, the father told him that “Don’t Worry Be Happy” was written by Bob Marley. We tried our best to tune them out, but they were very shrill in addition to being somewhat ignorant and we were glad when they got off at the Louvre. We continued on the bus until we got to our second big destination of the day: the Notre Dame de Paris.

more like notre daaaaaaaaaaaamn am i rite

I’m fairly certain you can guess the adjectives I’ll use to describe the Notre Dame, but I’ll do it anyway: amazing, breathtaking, awe-inspiring, humbling. Also, pictures were allowed inside so that was an added bonus. It was just incredible inside, and we spent hours admiring the stained glass windows, sculptures and holy relics inside. I’m just this side of being an atheist, but it was beautiful in there and I feel privileged for being able to see it in person. Our pictures won’t do the inside justice, but here are some anyway:

So cool.

Drained from everything we had seen that day, we spent some time wandering along the Seine to collect our thoughts. It was then I realized I had forgotten to get a miniature Eiffel Tower to bring home, and decided to get one from a cheesy souvenir shop along the river. There were several to choose from, but I went with the one called MEGA SOUVENIR figuring that if I was going to get anything, it had best be MEGA to truly capture the magnitude of our trip – and with that in mind, I got this:

there are souvenirs, and then there are MEGA SOUVENIRS

It is a thing of beauty; exactly like my photos and memories of the tower. *sniffle*

We had to be back at the train station for our 9pm trip through the Chunnel, so we hopped on the terrifying Paris Metro for a few stops. We were famished, so we went outside and picked the first restaurant we saw at random: the Paris Nord Cafe, featuring the snootiest waiter in all of Paris!

He was a stereotypical dream – so snooty! So full of disdain for we silly North Americans! So rude and abrupt! We were slightly disappointed that we had not seen a single mine or baguette in all of Paris, but our Snooty Waiter more than made up for it. We ate dinner, splurged on dessert (creme brule, crepes and apple tart) and made our way back to the train station for the two-hour ride home.

So, what did we think of Paris?

As beautiful as the sights were, the city itself was scary. We had been utterly spoiled by London being so amazing, and Paris in contrast felt really crowded, dirty and congested. The traffic was terrible, everything was filthy from exhaust, a lot of the city was undergoing repairs, and huge 5-storey ads for luxury goods were plastered on every surface. Don’t get me wrong, I’m extremely glad we went to Paris .. but whereas I LOVE London and am giving serious thought to applying for an ancestry Visa, I don’t feel the same urge to return to Paris any time soon. I am just not worldly enough for France, I think.

Next up: our last full day in London :(

notre domo!

renee heather and domo at the louvre

the paris opera house - my favourite building

cloudy over the notre dame