WTF? Friday

Saw this the other day when I went to log in to do some banking online…(first direct is a bank for those of you not in the UK).

I somehow dont’ think they have your best interest in mind with this one…especially if you read the fine print of their life insurance policy which probably says something like ‘death by alcohol consumption is not covered’. Clever marketing….sign up with us, have 6 bottles to celebrate, die, then not be covered and we keep your money!!  I am hoping they aren’t offering the same deal on their car insurance….

Baby gadgets

So since it seems like a fairly fertile year for many of my friends, I thought a baby related gadget blog might be in order.  I saw most of these on TV the other morning and drooled over the ingenuity of every single one!

Sock Ons -http://www.sockons.co.uk/

Wee little elasticy thingy that goes over a baby’s socks to keep them on…wonder if they can make a boot version of these as we were following a kid in a buggy the other day that lost his welly and we had to chase after then to give it back…if he had a boot on, that wouldn’t have happened.

Baby Dam - http://www.babydam.co.uk/

Check it out…its a dam….for the bath!  Now you don’t have to waste all that water filling up the huge bath for a wee little baby (or a  blonde blogger named Adrienne who finds her tub at home too big and would benefit from this as well)

Stay put cutlery -http://www.funkymoose.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=790

How much do I love this…the bowl is suction cupped to the tray and the cutlery is on springy coils so they don’t fall to the ground.  I am sooo getting this for the hubby, he has dropped his fork on the floor twice this week and the food remnants nicely landed on our white couch – um yeah I realise this wouldn’t be as much of an issue if we ate at the kitchen table versus the coffee table but you can’t see the TV as well from the kitchen.

A job well done?

From my experience it seems that the UK (or Londoners) have adopted a fairly energy efficient lifestyle. They use smaller fridges which use less energy, very small freezers, washer/tumble dryer combos which are basically useless so people tend to hang their clothes out and running water is set up on an ‘on demand’ system.

In Canada we had a giant water tank – okay giant to me – but the thing is easily 5 feet tall and 3 feet around and is always full of hot water, presumably it takes quite a bit of gas/electrical energy to keep a giant tank of water warm all the time in case someone needs 50 cubic feet of hot water in a hurry. The downside to this is that if you do happen to have a giant bath you have to wait for the tank to fill and heat again before having another.
Anyhoo the system here (in our flat at least) is that the water isn’t held in a reserve we just have an electric heater that heats the water up as you need it (by running it through molten lava or fire or something like that).  But it works and it means that you only use a burst of energy when you need hot water and when you don’t, it sits idle.

For our shower that is located farther away from this heater thing they install a smaller version of the same heater that you turn on and off like your tap (except its a button which is way more fun). For the past year or so ours has been on the fritz (technical term) and has only been spewing out scalding hot water no matter which way you turn the dial.  Last week we couldn’t take it any more as I honestly thought we were going to have physical burns on our skin.

Sooo..we headed off to the DYI store and bought ourselves a shiny new shower unit.  Knowing we couldn’t install it ourselves we hired an electrician, luckily for us he was available the next day (yay recession) and so we booked him in.   He tried in vain for 2 hours to get it set up then decided he needed help from his plumber friend whom he contacted and came over that same evening.  The two of them fiddled for a while then announced they were done…. thoughts??

On the upside the water temperature is much better

Happy Mother’s Day

Happy Mothers Day Mom!

(As I mentioned, Canada and the UK do not share the same Mothers Day nor do they share the same spelling as my UK spell check has nicely suggested I change every instance of Mom to Mum….)

Since I am not sure my card will have arrived in time (oops) I thought I would peruse my favourite e-card site to see what they had for the occasion.  This site is fantastic if you have a snarky sarcastic sense of humour (like me) and is called someecards.com.  Mom, I thought you would like these two cause they are both very very true…(have a good day and I will skype you later )

DDisaster….

I missed the original announcement but apparently Marks and Spencer decided that they would charge £2 more for any bras they sold over a size D due to the fact they take  more material to make than smaller sized ones.   Not surprisingly this caused an uproar and they have since retracted said decision.   I have to give them credit however as I love that less than 24 hours after reversing their decision they had a cheeky (or rather, boob-y) ad campaign in all of the free newspapers apologising for it.

Maybe Oprah can steal this ad and just change the copy at the bottom to apologise for her KFC free lunch fiasco….

WTF? Friday

I love this thing…it was developed for the game boy (yes that monumental hand held game that weighed 5 lbs and was the size of a brick) and I wish it was more readily available during my childhood as it would have made the lives better of  many doctors/dentists/nurses whom came in contact with me, better.  I have a bit of a fear of needles…or pain in general  so got Valium and nitrous oxide when I got my wisdom teeth out and request emla cream (a topical freezing cream) whenever I get blood drawn (yes, even at 30).

This spectacular gadget is called the Pedisedate and I dont’ think I can explain it better than their website does…

Once the child places it on his or her head and swings the snorkel down from its resting place atop the head, PediSedate transparently monitors respiratory function and distributes nitrous oxide, an anesthetic gas. The child comfortably becomes sedated while playing with a Nintendo Game Boy system or listening to music. This dramatically improves the hospital or dental experience for the child, parents and healthcare providers.

Can I get a ‘hell yeah’….well done inventor dudes, well done.

Source: Oh Gizmo

Brave nuns

How can you not love a city when you can wander along the street and see abseiling nuns (rappelling for you North Americans -  abseiling might be one of my new favourite words, don’t get to use it much though)??!

Just in case you weren’t sure, its a PR stunt for the opening of the Sister Act musical, not a bunch of adventurous nuns just hanging out in central London.

I also couldn’t resist snapping a picture of this, a nice message for these times…..(the heaven like lighting was just a coincidence, unless the nuns had something to do with it)

Omaha – somewhere in middle America

So this past weekend was the first bank holiday of the year and I spent it with my good friends in pubs while the hubby spent the weekend in Omaha…why you ask (or do you have the Counting Crows song in your head as well?)

Anyhoo to backtrack a minute, the hubby idolises a financial dude called Warren Buffet, for those of you who don’t get the pleasure of having books about him lying about your house or hearing your hubby quote him…he is an American investment investor/businessman whom has been very successful at both as he is the second richest person in the world behind Bill Gates. I refuse to go into more detail other than to say he is extremely brilliant and am happy for the hubby to idolise him as long as he follows his views on philanthropy (yay) and ignores his frugality (yuck) in his personal life (okay a little frugality is good but when you are the second richest dude in the world…??)

So every year he holds his Annual General Shareholders meeting for those who hold shares in his company, we don’t but the hubby luckily had a friend who did. The event took place on Saturday and on top of hearing Warren and his partner Charlie answer questions for 5 hours, there was also has a trade show where the companies he invests in (from Netjets to Coca-Cola) set up displays.

The hubby was in the queue outside the stadium at 5am (mainly cause he hadn’t adjusted to the time change but some of it was probably excitement) to make sure they got a good seat and were treated to a wild west re-enactment while they waited (only in America). Once inside the hubby saw loads of ‘famous’ investment bankers and enjoyed every minute of the whole thing.

When the main event day was over, they were left with some time to tour Omaha (read: booorrring) and visit some of the places which Warren owns including a jewellery store (that’s more like it).  As the hubby was walking in to the jewellery store who follows him in but Bill Gates…being the good paparazzi that I trained him to be, he opened the door for him then snapped this photo

He also thought it woudl be nice for me to see all the people in the jewellery store buying things (he, not being one of them).

Just off of the jewellery store there was a room where a bridge game was being played – Warren is fanatical about bridge and plays either online or offline every day – in this game were more famous investment people and Warren and Bill Gates squaring off at one of the tables. Warren is the dude with the Coca Cola and M&Ms. He also saw Glenn Close (in the store not playing bridge) and a few other celebs which I was wayyy more interested in.

Anyway he had a great time which makes it better that he left me alone for a long weekend but it also means that I can hang it over his head for a while so if I get invited to the Oscars or to hang out with Reece Witherspoon for a weekend, he can’t say no…I am such a nice wife

This is why I love the show

I know most of the world has heard of Susan Boyle by now after she was discovered on Britain’s Got Talent and sent via satellite all around the world – it seems another like her has been found.

Jamie Pugh is a van driver by day and pizza delivery guy by night but I have a feeling all of that will change. He sings a song from my all time favourite musical Les Miserables (both my Dad and I know every word to probably every song in it – that’s what happens when you see it 6 times) and does a beautiful job at it. On top of that, you can’t help but love how genuinely taken aback he is that people like him.

It would be great if he can act too as they would be crazy not to have him play Jean Valjeans in the London production, I’d certainly go!

Its a bit of a long video but seriously what else do you have to do on a Sunday afternoon…Enjoy.

WTF? Friday

One of the things I forgot about home was the unbelievable amount of infomercials.  They seem to be playing all day every day and feature everything from the slap and chop, mighty putty to the chamwow.  All these things you didn’t know existed or that you needed but after 30 seconds of being enthusiastically yelled at, are convinced you can’t live without.

Every time I see them however I am fascinated by the enthusiastic presenters, the cheezy celebrities and the overpaid and overexcited crowd that ooh and aah along with the show.  This particular one though I was shocked with as it features Mr T in his most wooden, clichéd role ever…my favourite bit is around the 16 second mark when he  says ‘I pity the fool who tries to get this down’ …What does that even MEAN??