Q2 2010 cheat sheet

March saw my birthday come and go, marked with 10 of my nearest and dearest crammed into our tiny living room, playing Buzz the entire night. We're a competitive bunch. I almost forgot that I was struggling with a bad cold the whole night.

Aaron and Young made the trip down and we aboslutely love it when they do because it means we can whip out SingStar first thing in the morning, and what's better than SingStar in your PJs?

April brought Just Dance to the See-Lee household, introducing even more minutes of hilarity, and I say minutes because that game is actually really tiring and we're really not particularly fit or coordinated.

April also brought Weng's brother to London for his annual visit ('because Cambridge is FAR, okay?') and we decided to venture down to Greenwich.

And then he turned 21 at some point during one of our Settlers of Catan marathons (we played that game over and over and over), so we stopped to whip out a Gu brownie, clotted cream, and requisite candle. Apparently, it's not a good idea to put a wax candle in a hot chocolate brownie.

May flew by in a flurry of job interviews, visits from relatives, birthdays, and Matlab training (yes, I got the t-shirt and everything), as well as a long overdue visit to Hampton Court Palace.

June rolled around with the highly anticipated (and highly televised) World Cup, (Ferragamo sale!!1!!), Wimbledon, and what I expect to be a grossly overblown electricity bill for the month. I think our TV needs to rest.

I think that brings us to now.

Old and forgetful

My day went a little like this:

Got dressed, packed for work and netball afterwards, and left the house. Sat down at my desk and opened the drawer where my laptop usually lives and it was nowhere to be found. Cue forehead-smacking moment #1. Went all the way home again to get it.

Smoothie time came around and I stood at my desk checking I had enough money then made for the lift lobby. As the lift dinged at Ground, I realised I hadn’t taken the right purse-thing (i.e. no cash), forehead-smacking moment #2, so immediately went straight back upstairs.

Grabbed the correct purse, thought ‘Aha! Needed to bank that cheque anyway’, and merrily went on my way without my security pass. Forehead-smacking moment #3: Realised the lack of access to the office only after banking in the cheque. Some would argue this is a good thing in 20 degree sunshine, but having only started work at about 10.30 this morning, I ran back to HSBC to look for it. Gave up when it dawned on me that security at the branch wouldn’t appreciate someone a) leaving an unattended item, or b) searching under tables and between ATMs like a maniac, so gave up quickly. Decided I REALLY needed the smoothie after this, and then had to sheepishly sidle up to reception where she called the cavalry (and my manager) to come get me.

And that’s not the last of it – last week I managed to magic away our spare electric toothbrush refills because for once I bothered to actually put them away responsibly and then promptly forgot where I had put them. There was a lot of looking high and low after that too.

And I was reading today about early onset Alzheimer’s also -_-

Wordsmithing

Here's another hack of a post, but it was particularly entertaining given that I'd had received it while dealing with persons 2. and 5. for much of the day.

The Washington Post's Mensa Invitational once again
invited readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by
adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new
definition.

Here are the winners:

1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

2. Ignoranus : A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

3. Intaxicaton : Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

4. Reintarnation : Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

5. Bozone ( n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

6. Foreploy : Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

7. Giraffiti : Vandalism spray-painted very, very high

8. Sarchasm : The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

9. Inoculatte : To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

10. Osteopornosis : A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

11. Karmageddon : It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

12. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

13. Glibido : All talk and no action.

14. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

15. Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

16. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

17. Caterpallor ( n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.

The Washington Post has also published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words. And the winners are:

1. Coffee, n. The person upon whom one coughs.

2. Flabbergasted, adj. Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.

3. Abdicate, v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

4. Esplanade, v. To attempt an explanation while drunk.

5. Willy-nilly, adj. Impotent.

6. Negligent, adj. Absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.

7. Lymph, v. To walk with a lisp.

8. Gargoyle, n. Olive-flavored mouthwash.

9. Flatulence, n. Emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.

10. Balderdash, n. A rapidly receding hairline.

11. Testicle, n. A humorous question on an exam.

12. Rectitude, n. The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.

13. Pokemon, n. A Rastafarian proctologist.

14. Oyster, n. A person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.

15. Frisbeetarianism, n. The belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.

16. Circumvent, n. An opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.

Return of the netball junkie

Another cold cold night, zero out, and what I'm wearing would, quite frankly, shock my mother. (Only because IT'S COLD.) Which brings me to want to examine the awesomeness that is social netball:

1. Work grief. What healthier way is there to vent your rage at an incompetent colleague than by exacting physical punishment on yourself and everyone else in an enclosed space

2. Tactile addiction. The dimpled, slightly tacky surface of a ball in all its size 4 rubberized glory

3. Court plays. The glorious satisfaction of all those clever 1-2s that see the ball hurtling down the court

4. Court markings. The familiar lines that divide this sometimes manic, overbearing world into 5 neat, controllable segments.

5. The swoosh of the ball as it catches 'nothin' but net'

3. Winning.

Reconnecting: world, here I come!

After concluding rather stressful negotiations for an upgrade with the moneypinching entity that is O2, I finally received my new bb and it hasn't left my hand since. I'm like a new parent, jumping at every single buzz and blinking light, managing the boyfriend's gentle stirrings of resentment. Now that I have a connection on the go, I finally understand twitter and that texting and walking is still ill-advised. Reconnecting with all the friends and family scattered across the globe has totally been worth early warning signs of carpal tunnel.

I've downloaded every conceivable chat platform known to man AND run out of people to harass online, so here's one of the last to-dos on my list: resurrect the blog.