My Big Break

I don't want to be famous but it seems like a pretty sought after thing to be. I also don't mean to brag but this might just be my big break. 

-This sentence here, is the link to my FAME.

That is some ground breaking cellphone photojournalism for you.

If I've done the math right - You're 63!

Happy Birthday Piebs!

Thanks for cleaning my apartment, driving me to the ski hill and always paying as little attention as me in church:

Hope your day was great and that Grandma didn't steal all your birthday thunder!

ummm that being said....

Happy Birthday Mooka Smid!

I love you enough to post a picture of me with a crying nose! I hope you had a great day. I am sure you and Dad really partied hard. Next time we hang out we will take better pictures. 

Love love love!

The + sign gets a Tonne of Lovin'

I joined Google+. I might be one of your friends if you ask politely. I will even send you an invitation if you insist. I just can't guarantee I will feed any information to you. The main reason is that I don't understand how it works.

Questions I have:

• Do people know that I've named most of my circles offensive titles so I am reminded not to share things with them?
• If you are 'hanging out' alone and you forget you are 'hanging out' are you warned when someone comes to 'hang out' with you and finds that you are just sitting there braiding your hair in a complete circle around your head and singing along to Outkast or can they just quietly leave?
• Did anyone 'hang-out' with me an hour ago?
• Can people Google the following "Things Jill clicked the +1 for" and see the things I've clicked the +1 on? If they can, I need to stop clicking those....
• Are the developers of Google+ tired of reading "How does this work?", "If I post something to just one person's feed and then comment on that post is the comment still private?", "Can you see this?", "Is this public?", "Where is your wall?", "Why can't I poke anyone", "Can people read that I've put them in a circle with an offensive title?"?
• Why did I have to share my Picasa account? If Google+ keeps getting used does that mean so will Picasa? Aw man, that would really suck!
• How many Friends does Mark Zuckerberg have?
• Can you suggest a solution for putting people into circles? How does one divide people into categories? I've got nine people in circles and I am already up to six circles because I can't commit.
• Does anyone else's pinky hurt really badly because they are using it to find the damn + sign all the time?

Things I like about Google+:

• It doesn't have Facebook privacy settings and the constantly changing Facebook messaging system.
• Nothing else.... yet. You've still got a few weeks to woo me Google+... I'm looking for something new... flirt, flirt. 

Things I dislike about Google+:

• It made me feel lonely.

Things that don't make me feel lonely that maybe should:

• Cooking enough fajitas for four people even though you know you are the only one eating.
• Eating enough fajitas for two.
• Watching an entire season of Veronica Mars in one week.
• Realising the word bored and amped are the same numbers on a cell phone and finding it totally and utterly hilarious.... alone.
• Braiding my hair while singing along to Outkast.

Editor's Note and WARNING: Oh god! The things you've +1ed on Google definitely show up on your Google+ Page. Prominently. 

Freak Rain

A weather report for you, because it seems as if I don't really have anything more interesting to talk about lately.

It's been hot. Really hot. Like two weeks of over 30 degrees hot. It's forced me to tan, swim in abandoned quarries, and sweat more than I am willing to admit. For two weeks an impending thunder shower was always been promised for the next day, then would bump itself to the next day, and the next, and the next. Headaches were commonplace. Last night it finally broke and I am wearing a sweater and slippers and am in bliss.

However, the other day there was a freak storm. I was walking down my street heading for the bridge a block away, there was not a cloud to be seen. It wasn't a blue sky though. It was more of a hazy sky of pollution and sweat. All of a sudden some water hit my shoulder and I enviously looked up to see who's air conditioner was the culprit. No air conditioner. Ok, that's weird. Another hit - my eye. The first thought that went to my mind was that pigeons might have started pooping cold poop and now it was in my eye. That was weird.

The pavement slowly, so slowly, also seemed to be getting splashed with giant water drops. So I continued to look up at the apartment buildings as this must be a cruel joke. The woman walking next to me was equally confused so I wasn't the only one looking like an idiot trying to understand where on earth RAIN could be coming from.

By the time I reached the corner of my street it had stopped.

By the time I reached the bridge half a block further it had turned into a DOWNPOUR. Sun, haze, 40 degree heat and now RAIN. I got halfway across the bridge and it was over. The invisible clouds moved on leaving behind a city reminiscent of a Junior High locker room after someone turned all the showers on super hot, but no one actually took a shower, they just left their sweaty boy clothes behind.

I would like to say that I can promise future posts will be less sweat-laden, but that is something I am not willing to commit to.

I can haz intrnetz?

My internet is broken today. So I’ve spent two hours in a café nursing a latte and a hangover this afternoon. I lasted another couple of hours in my apartment making fresh baby potatoes, corn on the cob and yellow beans (covered in too much salt and pepper and butter) and knit about three centimetres on my new project. I thought that reading a book would be too isolating from the world so I’ve gone to another café to steal their wifi. Going to the same one would be a failure.

I would rather stay here online than at home in pyjamas. I really don’t have much to tell you other than that. I like the internet a lot. I don’t do lots on it but when it’s broken it’s the same feeling as when the TV and power goes out in a storm and you have to turn on the radio. What if there is a flash flood, tornado or zombie apocalypse I need to know about?

I suppose I could write blog entries about that time I went to Denmark via Dusseldorf and ended up in a classy airport hotel due to a delayed plane. Or how I cried in the Deutsche Bahn office when I bought the wrong kind of ticket and they wouldn’t give me my money back for user stupidity. Or that time I ate salad in Hamburg during the peak of the E-Coli scare and put my body into high stress worrying for the next two weeks. But I would rather click through pointless Tumblrs.

This café has banana chocolate mascarpone cheesecake (a full layer of fresh bananas…); I will be staying a while.