emchi.co.uk

Sorry it’s been a bit quiet around here at the moment.  Not much going on, but I’m very stressed at the moment.  To the point where I’ve got dermatitis on both hands, a buggered neck and I’m clenching my teeth when I sleep.  It’s not a good time at Chez Emchi.

The puppy is still Pupzilla.  Although we’re now allowed to take the monkey out for a walk.  Or she takes us out for a walk.  Not quite worked it out yet.  Anyway she keeps doing reasonably cute things.  Like this morning she trotted out to the bathroom dragging her lead behind her, then sat down, picked up the handle and started wagging her tail at me.  I think she knows what walkies is. 

On her first real walk, we’ve found the following out:

• She doesn’t like diesil engines
• She doesn’t like manhole covers that rock (freaks her out big time)
• She doesn’t like old men (she went nuts when one tried to pet her, yelping for ages… tad embarassing)
• She loves grass, she likes lying in it and rolling around in it and would happily spend all day in it.

Oh, she snores… which is really funny.  She also finishes her food, puts her front paws on the sofa cushion and burps in R’s face… without fail.  Oh and Wednesday was the first time she did a stinky fart… which cleared the room.  When it was safe to come back we sat down and cried with laughter… the things you remember eh?

In other news the water softner decided to play up and then the dishwasher went out on strike in sympathy.  I had to laugh.  Both appear to be fixed now.  Water softner had not been working since we moved in it would seem.  A bit of fiddling and hey presto, all is well in water land.

Well interesting few days.  I spent Friday and Saturday in London attending the Nielsen Norman Group conference on Intranet Usability.  Really interesting, best thing I’ve been to in a very long time. Hopefully I’ll get to apply some of what I learnt to my job.  Still it was exhausting, lack of sleep the night before, and staying up late talking to my best friend, all but did me in. 

Today I’ve done a mad dash to find puppy food (as she’s stopped eating the food for older dogs we were told to feed her), done the food shopping, watched the Grand Prix and baked a cake.  Yes, all in that order, I’ve still got the housework to do yet.

Brilliant Grand Prix today, Lewis deserved to win.  Which leads me onto something interesting I read on auto blog.  Apparently, Richard Hammond is going to be the F1 presenter when it goes to BBC next year.  If it’s true, then rock on!  Now all we need is someone like Suzi Perry to do the pit commentary.  I wonder who will do race commentary, I hope Martin Brundle moves, I like his commentary.  Perhaps Murray will come back?  Who knows. 

Anyway, I’m thinking of some blog posts on usability following the conference.  More soon!

I’ve reduced my posting about politics, becuase, it gets me rather annoyed these days.  Still, I can’t but help post something about how utterly useless this government is. 

All they’ve ever done is take away tax rebates and tax everyone more.  I thought that was supposed to be what the *bad* Torries were supposed to do all the time?  Now they strip the 10p tax rate, say they won’t back down and now they announce that they’re going to give it back to those worse off by it? 

Then there’s inflation, which is rigged because they don’t include petrol.  If they did then we’d be looking at inflation rising alarmingly.  Basic food items are costing more, fuel is costing more, housing costs more… all the government are doing is taking money off of us to line, their own personal pockets.  Shame on them!

This government has to go, the fat moron in charge has no concept of what he’s doing, didn’t get there by being voted into power and should not be running this country.  I say it’s time for an election.  Get these stealing, incompetent swines out of power.

Just downloaded (legally, but I’ll get to that in a moment) the first episode of Pushing Daises (links to the IMDb page for Pushing Daises if you’re interested).  Firstly absolutely hilarious, and impressive American accent from Anna Freil.  Secondly, it’s a tad on the sickly side of things but it does make me think about Dead Like Me.

Well you’ve got a girl, in both cases, who died and was essentially brought back to life.  Although in Dead Like Me George was hit by a toilet seat falling from the international space station, and when I say brought back to life she was still dead, and now a “reaper”.  She took life from others.  In Pushing Daises, Chuck (Anna Freil) gets strangled and is brought back to life by Ned who can apparently bring people back to life.

Sickly and sweet, not a bad combination, and also reasonably watchable.  The bit where the waitress at the beginning talks about getting words confused and says “I used to think the word Masturbate meant chewing food… obviously I don’t think that now” did have me laughing for a bit.

I did find it amusing that ITV (who are showing this) are not showing episode two because the full run would interfere with the bloody football.  What a bunch of tossers.  Anyway, I bought it and downloaded it from iTunes.  First time I’ve bought a TV episode from iTunes.  Felt good to do it legally, until I watched it.  Maybe it would play faster on my G5 but on my PowerBook, it was slow and juddery, don’t get that with anything else.  Most annoying.  Will have to try it on my G5.

Anyway, if you’re a fan of Dead Like Me, then you’re sure to enjoy this, it’s a bit more girly than Heroes, but equally enjoyable.  Looking forward to the next episode.

I’m enjoying a very rare luxury… A proper lie in… I’ve been left on my lonesome while r has gone into London to try and get arrested (long story I won’t bore you all with).  Anyway, I’m currently sitting in bed, enjoying having the whole thing to myself.  I would be enjoying it more but the birds up the chimney are really starting to annoy me.  They’ve been at it for two hours now.  Gah!! They have to go, and soon! bloody annoying things they are.

Right, I’m going in search of food and coffee… no rest for the wicked as they say!

Normal service will resume when I stop feeling so utterly crap… I get the feeling someone’s spiked my food with a beachball… a large one.  Am at home in agony.  I don’t think it’s the norovirus that’s been going around because my body has been building up to this for the last three weeks.  Still I’m seeing a doctor tomorrow morning, far more efficient than trying to see one in London. 

Well I’m going to carry on watching the food network and reading stuff for work, like the beached whale I seem to have become.

So R said to me “Did you hear Iceland are going bankrupt?”

So obviously, I reply “Oh well that means Chipshop Katona will be out of work”

Clearly I get a very baffled look, and get the response “noooo not the shop, the country”.

…. durrrr….. Well seriously, wouldn’t you think of the shop before you think of the country? (To those readers in America, there are a few I believe, Iceland is a fronzen food shop in the UK, who’s appaling advertising is done by Kerry Katona).

It appears that Iceland being a population of very few people was in trouble a couple of years ago so they wacked their interest rates right up, now with the global credit crunch, nobody wants to invest in the country and are running faster than a politician after a free lunch. Hence they’re in trouble.  Mind you it can’t be *that* bad because Sky haven’t been banging on about it instead of Amy Winegum and Chutney Stars.

I have a bruise on my right arm the size of my fist (no I didn’t punch myself).  It would appear that I do need blood tests as the third doctor I’ve seen *thinks* it’s Carpal Tunnel… Osteopath disagrees but I’ll get to that later.  Anyhoo, my nearest phlebotomy clinic (no, not Lobotomy, yes I know I probably need it), is only held on Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays.  So I found myself at the mercy of Dracula on Halloween.  Yes as I’ve mentioned, the irony is not lost. 

So I asked they take the blood from my left arm, which meant being awkward.  They needed four ampules of blood, and the damn needle fell out after two.  Cue me looking at the nurse, whimpering, looking at the blood now pouring down my arm and whimpering some more… I think I *may* have said something incomprehensible to which the nurse decided to split the two blood samples into four… Anyway, now my left arm is not working well so I have been wandering around the flat for most of the day unable to do much with either arm.  To anyone watching me trying to make a sarnie at lunchtime, it made for a comic experience.  Sheesh I’m a wimp!!

Back to the Doctors… The tingling is not getting any better, when it comes on, and it’s not consistent (believe me if I knew what brings it on, I would avoid doing it, only it does it when I don’t expect it).  It lasts for longer, the tingling turns to pins and needles and I can no longer shake it out.  I cut the back of my hand Sunday night, and I didn’t feel it, I still can’t feel it.  I mean I can feel the back of my hand, but I can’t feel sharp pain, it’s REALLY freaky. 

My Osteopath agreed that I need blood tests, is shocked by the diagnostic ability of my GP (who didn’t ask lots of pertinent questions).  I know what they’re testing for, Diabetes (which I doubt I have, no symptoms whatsoever) and Hyper / Hypo Thyrodism.  I think I’ve got one of them (can’t remember which), but it explains a hell of a lot of things that I never put together.  Oooh sorry, the Doctor is checking for those because apparently (and he didn’t say any of this, I had to Google it), Carpal Tunnel isn’t caused by RSI, there’s normally an underlying condition that triggers it, i.e. Diabetes or the Thyroid function problem.

However, my Osteopath isn’t convinced it’s Carpal Tunnel, he completely disagrees with the NHS diagnosis that there’s no neurological problem as his 90 minute tests last week showed there were (no that doesn’t mean I’m a nut case, ok I am a nut case, but that’s not what I mean).  He showed me what arteries and nerves run through the muscles in the shoulder and said I could have done any one of a number of things that are causing restricted flow to them. 

Bottom line, I’ve got an Osteopath who I know and trust, who I’ve spent more time with than any of the three doctors I’ve seen in the last week disagreeing with these Doctors… I just want to know what the hell is wrong so I can fix it.  There seriously is only so much of the Food Channel I can watch you know :o)

PS sorry to my regular few readers, if you want to post then you’ll need to sign up, it’s just about the only way to get rid of the spammers, of which there were too many.  Signing up only takes a moment!

Reading the Observer food monthly when you’re a foody is a bit of a mistake. You end up dreaming of perfectly white langoustines in their delicate pink shells, or steamed trout or, well, just about anything else. Damn… Given the distinct lack of perseverance in my department (thanks to a bloody sore neck… curse the lack of core stability and the pile of laundry the size of the gherkin), I am resorted to some healthy eating thing that does have prawns in it.

Another thing to curse is the wonderful English weather. It put the kibosh on the cricket for the day, and now the Grand Prix is over I have the choice of reading a book, watching a DVD, surfing channels (and wishing I could be slovenly and watch CSI until the cows came home)… Such choices, have settled for watching Star Wars… again… all six of them. Bank Holidays can be great if you’ve got things to do, but when the weather sighs in protest at the thought of everyone but it having fun, you are somewhat limited to what you can do.

So I am back to the sofa, cursing it more each day as it is a monstrosity that does nothing but make me grumpy, watch the endless rain and find things to occupy myself. There’s something salacious about knowing the weather is awful and you can actually stay indoors doing the things you actually enjoy. Boring? not in the slightest!

Manic weekend! I think six hours in a hot car, not enough water, and heavy food contributed to the migrane and projectile vomiting at 4 o’clock on Saturday morning… still a good weekend was had by all. Cousin enjoyed trip, I un-wound somewhat, and dad enjoyed Eater Lunch at a country pub…. job well done.

My dad lent me The Queen, (no not that one, I’m sure that people might talk if they did), the film that’s just won all the Oscars. I have to say that I can see why Helen Mirren won the Oscar it was a stunning performance, and I sympathised with her. I can’t quite remember what happened to my feelings that week as I remember spending three days wanting to throw up quite a bit (I know you probably think there’s a pattern forming here, but honestly there’s not). From what I can remember it was a lovely shade of blue thanks to a job lot of blue curacao (the detrius, not my thoughts, although the blue curacao could have contributed quite significantly to the lack of memory, ok so it DID contribute quite a bit but that’s a story for another time).

Anyway, the film was rather good, and it only served to make me hate the Blairs even more. I would strongly suggest that their time coming to an end soon can’t be soon enough in my books, however, Brown must not stay. Again, I digress. I wanted to say that I watched Mansfield Park the other week, what an utter pile of crap. Who wrote the script? Was there a script? did it say “poorly cast actresses should look whistfully at each other a lot as they can’t act for toffee and there’s no point writing a decent script”? I mean seriously, who on earth though ITV could make a period drama? They should leave it to BBC and Merchant Ivory.

Which leads me nicely onto my final tie in (getting reasonably good at this aren’t I?), we stopped off at Wilton House this afternoon, which was used in a couple of scenes in the recent Pride and Prejudice film. Quite interesting, not much open to the public, but it is nice to see a stately home still owned and used by the family with some rooms open to the public. The grounds were probably better than the house, as it did seem a little muddled. Anyway, that’s enough for tonight, I’ve got stuff to sort out for work in the morning.

I may get around to blogging about the horsey set that were permanently camped out in the hotel / pub that we were staying in… If I hear one more person say “mummy” or “daddy” who’s old enough to know better I might go slightly postal…