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The Police are back!!
I’m so excited because on June 5th of this year, The Police are releasing their ‘Best of’ collection to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their recording debut. This highly anticipated double-CD set features all their greatest songs including my favorites, Every Breath You Take and Message in a Bottle. And now, 30 years later, Stewart Copeland, Andy Summers and the super-sexy Sting have put together 30 (how appropriate) of their most successful releases.
This Police CD is simply entitled The Police and the track list is as follows:
Disc 01
Fall Out
Can't Stand Losing You
Next To You
Roxanne
Truth Hits Everybody
Hole In My Life
So Lonely
Message In A Bottle
Reggatta de Blanc
Bring On The Night
Walking On The Moon
The Bed's Too Big Without You
Don't Stand So Close To Me
Driven To Tears
Canary In A Coalmine
Disc 02
De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da
Voices Inside My Head
Invisible Sun
Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
Spirits In The Material World
Demolition Man
Rehumanize Yourself
Every Breath You Take
Synchronicity I
Wrapped Around Your Finger
Walking In Your Footsteps
Synchronicity II
King Of Pain
Murder By Numbers
Tea In The Sahara
I saw The Police in concert when I was about twelve years old and they blew my mind. In fact, it was my very first concert. I’d looked forward to seeing them for so long and they didn’t disappoint. You may be thinking that The Police were a bit before my time, but I had parents who enjoyed a wide range of music and succeeding in rubbing their eclectic tastes off on me and my siblings. So I didn’t have any friends that were interested in joining me. Instead, I asked my uncle to take me, which he gladly did as a Police fan himself, and we had a blast.
As I mentioned early, I found Sting easy on the eyes, even when I was 12. For me, it was Sting and Adam Ant. What a combination!
The other day, I was looking at some footage on YouTube from the band’s recent concert in Vancouver and I see that the boys haven’t lost their touch. Apparently, this tour includes a 6-minte rendition of 1982’s Syncronicity. Great song.
I now see that The Police are playing in Montreal again on July 25th of this year – this time at The Bell Centre – and I’m very tempted to see them again. But with two young children, I may have to pass… I guess I’ll just have to settle with this new Police CD!
How I love a good ‘Best of’ CD!
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6 months old
While I was making Jake's supper yesterday, I sat Abby in his highchair. Jake hardly uses it anymore and Abby loves sitting upright. She freaks out if you sit her in her reclined bouncy chair.
We normally spread out a few toys on the chair's tray for her to amuse herself with. Before I could get the toys though, Abby reached for Jake's sippy cup. I didn't realize that she was drinking from it until I heard the sucking and slurping.
I took the cup from her, dumped out the apple juice and filled it with water. I handed the cup back to Abby and she gulped it all down.
She's only 6 months old!
P.S. I realize that in my pictures Abby is not seated in the highchair, making the photos contradict the written post. I had to move Abby into the reclined bouncy chair so that she could easily tip the cup and drink it.
Spelling!
Yesterday, we took Jake to the Early Learning Centre to have a hearing test. As we don't live in one of Canada's major cities, the group who normally work out of Ottawa come here once a month to screen the local kids when needed. I must say that it was really nice not to have to drive into Ottawa!
Anyway, we were having Jake's hearing tested simply to rule it out as the reason for his lack of speech. We were fairly certain that his hearing was just fine - as he reacts to sounds like everyone else - and we were right. He tested normal in both ears, so our next step is to have him accessed at the treatment centre in Ottawa. They will address our concerns about autism and the like and, hopefully, tell us that he is completely normal. Just lazy.
Anyway, while we were at the Early Learning Centre, we were given a children's book. They like to promote reading and they just gave us a book. Great! I always love a free gift!
So seeing as it was free, I don't want to complain but...
There are three spelling errors in this tiny, 10-page book!
Firstly, there's "ans" instead of "and". Then "beatiful" instead of "beautiful". And finally, "does'nt" instead of "doesn't".
Pretty bad.
Now, I don't profess to never make spelling errors myself but 1) my work is not being published and 2) I'm not trying to teach kids the value of reading with this here blog. I'm pretty disgusted that these errors are there, for the world to see. It's crazy.
The book is entitled "Having Fun" and is distributed by Rofact International Inc. I've looked them up and I'm going to tell them what I've found. But will they care? They obviously didn't care too much about proof-reading!
St-Eustache Flea Market
Today, we went to the St-Eustache Flea Market in St-Eustache, Quebec and we had a really nice time. I bought a long 'gypsy' skirt, some hair bands and a tiny bathing suit for Abby. The bathing suit was only $4.99. What a deal!
A few weeks ago, I was writing about how visiting Montreal really brought my French back. Well, St-Eustache is even more French. In fact, I think everyone was French except us. We really stood out.
When I ordered lunch, I started in English, then had to revert to French because I got a fairly blank look from the young lady behind the counter. But we finally got what we wanted so all was well.
My feet hurt now.
The News Room
Always looking for new ways to make a bit of cash online, I was really pleased to be introduced to The News Room. I have just signed up to it and I’m just learning how it all works. It seems simply enough and I’d obviously like to share it all with you.
How does it work?
Like a few other popular websites, The News Room provides thousands upon thousands of videos that can be embedded – or “mashed” - into your website. But unlike these other websites, they’ll pay you when visitors to your site view the videos. The news video is preceded by a short advertisement, which is, of course, where the revenue comes from.
There is a wide range of videos to choose from so they will always be something that will be appropriate for your site, with categories like politics, entertainment, science, health and many more. The News Room provides relevant and timely news videos that are simple to publish on your site. Just hit the “mash” button and copy the code into the html of your website. The videos are all fully licensed and are made available by major providers like Reuters, the Associated Press and Agence France-Press.
Why is this service good for bloggers like me?
The News Room enables bloggers like me to provide high quality content for our websites. It means that I can add a bit of video to enhance or support whatever opinion I may be presenting on my blog.
So, where will I start? Well, I’ll start with the news of the day about Paris Hilton. Isn’t she a riot?! This news piece comes out of the US and discusses what Paris’ prison conditions might be like. My guess is: she’s not going to like it one bit.
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Crippled
My job is crippling me. Or perhaps it's my shoes. Either way, I'm having a really rough time with it right now. It's not my feet, but my tendons, all down the backs of my ankles. Truly, I'm in agony while I'm working. This cannot go on.
When I'm at home, in regular shoes or bare-footed, I'm slightly sore and tender, like I'm recovering from an injury. But when I get my steel-toed shoes on a hit the concrete store floor, well, I'm a mess.
For my job, I need to stand for the whole shift and walk from one end of the store to the other. Recently, I just can't do it. I've obviously injured something, in both ankles, and I'm not giving it a chance to heal.
It could be the shoes, but what do I do? Spend another $50 on a different pair and hope that I get it right? Insoles? Got them and it hasn't helped. Ankle supports? Got them but I can't say that I've noticed any real difference. Ibuprophen? I do take it sometimes, but I can't take it before every shift! Doctor? Yeah, that's my next step, but he'll probably tell me to try one of the above.
I'm frustrated.
Diet and Fitness
As I've mentioned numerous time before, I need to lose weight. I bet that my weight is at least partially to blame for my sore ankles. My tiny feet are holding up too much weight, poor things. But, as usual, I lack the motivation to get myself started.
When we were still living in England a few years ago, I made a serious effort to lose weight. Stephen and I went into it together. We joined the gym and bought health foods. We counted calories and even monitored our fat intake. It took some simple mathematics, a calorie book and a pad of paper, but it was something that I felt really passionate about.
Stephen lost weight. I can't remember how much but he did really well. For once in my life, I can swear that I did not cheat and indeed worked my tail off at the gym and, although I did lose some weight, it wasn't as much as I wanted and not even close to what Stephen lost. I was so disappointed and discouraged. And really, I haven't tried again since.
At the time of this lifestyle change that I've been referring to, I searched around online for a website that provided a free calorie counter and free guidance on what my weight should be. By that, I mean that I could tell them my age, gendre and height and get a little feedback about how much I should lose, how much I need to exercise to do it and how many calories I should be taking in daily. It was no easy task. The vast majority of these websites want credit card details and some don't have the information I was looking for.
But I've found a good diet and fitness website now. They have a free calorie counter and give you all the above information before you even register!
I'm feeling particularly fat right now, having just polished of a custard cake. It's time (again) to do something about this issue that bothers me so much. I want to be motivated and I want to be slim, so I think I'll need to join their forums and muster up a bit of friendly support!
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Just get yourself a good firewall, and you'll be fine
When a customer leaves the store, we are supposed to encourage them to go online and fill in the customer satisfaction survey as per the instructions on the bottom of their receipt. When I worked on Tuesday, I told a woman aged about 55-60 about the survey and she got quite animated about how she would not be visiting the store's website because she feared that her computer would get bogged down with pornography.
"Pornography?" I asked. "Why would that happen? I can assure you that our website won't do that."
She looked at me with squinty eyes, like she knew I was lying to her.
"I used to have my own chatroom", she told me, "the best on the internet!"
I give my best 'impressed' look. The best on the internet, huh?
"It was the type of place that you could bring your kids to. No swearing or anything. It was great fun. Then, one day, I was typing away and all of a sudden this horrible picture popped up on my screen. Pornography. Just like that. Everyone in the chatroom was so shocked and asked me what it was all about. I told them I didn't know and they told me that it must be spam!"
Keeping in mind that as this woman tells me this story, she is pointing at my face and and nodding vigorously, eyes wide, as though I need to be warned of this shocking phenomena.
I put my reassuring face on and say, "As long as you've got a good firewall and some anti-virus software you'll be fine on the internet. Truly."
"Well, that may all be well and true," she said, "but I took my computer to the shop to be fixed after that episode and the guy there said he'd never seen so much spam on one computer!"
Isn't that always the way? Do all these computer fix-it guys say that to everyone or something? "The worst I've seen!"
I repeated my mantra about the firewall and anti-virus software and she ended the conversation by repeating that she would NOT be visiting the store's website because she was no fool and would NOT be falling for that again.
OK... whatever you say, lady.
Who wants to play a game?
What is it?
For the winner, I'll shout a big 'yipee' and 'congratulations'. OK? 
Formula One - Canadian GP
We just finished watching the Canadian Grand Prix, which takes place at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal, only about an hour away from us. I've been to the GP there before and it is definitely an awesome experience but, this year, I was OK with not being there. My loyalty to the sport has waned over recent years, since the births of my children, and also it is a very hot day.
When I went to the Canadian GP in 2000, it was stiffling. The race takes place on the man-made island of Ile Notre-Dame and our seats (as well as pretty much everyone else's) were right on the edge of the water. We had a wonderful, cool breeze on us all day and the heat didn't seem as fierce as the weatherman had predicted.
Having watched the Friday practice session and then the qualifying the following day in these glorious temperatures, I started to feel sick. My head spun a bit and I felt completely drained of energy. I left early on Saturday and went home.
When I got there, I accepted the fact that I'd had too much sun. I'd worn a long sleeved shirt to protect myself from its rays, but I could see that I had a sunburn on my wrists and my nose. I sat in my living room (I lived alone at the time) and cried. My head pounded and I vowed to always be more careful about the sun.
But, like a true F1 fan, I dragged myself out of bed the following morning for the big race, despite a throbbing headache.
My guy Villeneuve didn't finish the race, as I recall. It was a Ferrari 1-2 finish, with Schumacher taking the win and Barrichello right up his bum, as usual.
Anyway, I dipped in and out of today's race - which featured not one, not two, not even three, but four safety car appearances! Unbelievable. And a huge accident for Robert Kubica, who's car pretty much disintegrated around the cockpit. Stephen and I would not have been surprised to hear that the driver hadn't survived. But he did with only a broken leg. Very lucky.
I've decided that I can be an in-and-out F1 fan. I have Stephen there to fill me in on the bits that I miss!
