Mr and Mrs McMuffin

a perfect day...

The youngest of one has a posted about his perfect day, and it got me thinking. My perfect day would have to take place in Madeira with Mrs McMuffin. The weather would be warm and sunny. The day would begin with us sitting on our balcony with a view of the sea sipping hot strong coffee. We would then spend a couple of hours wandering around Funchal, stopping every now and then for another coffee. Stopping off at the cafe in the yellow square for some lunch and maybe a beer. After we have eaten we would get a cab to Madeira Shopping, a new out of town shopping centre, for a bit of window shopping, and maybe we would even buy a couple of little things. As this is my fantasy, I have decided that Apple have opened a store in the centre, and Mrs McMuffin in a fit of generosity decides to buy me a 15" Powerbook. When I have calmed down, we would go to the lovely, plush, new cinema in the centre to see a film, some kind of summer blockbuster, sci-fi actioner type thing, starring Arnie in his heyday. That probably takes care of most of the day. My evening would be spent back on our balcony with the lovely view, and as if by miracle, half a dozen of my favourite people turn up, with Gary Rhodes in tow. For some reason, Gary is determined to prepare us all a fantastic meal. We all spend the rest of the evening eating great food, drinking, and chatting. We finally get to bed about 2am, we are happy and tired, but not too tired...That would be a nice day.

google this

I thought I would check on our stats, and discovered that our post mail order husband keeps coming up. I did a search myself and discovered that we are the No. 2 item. How cool and, it must be said, slightly weird is that? The number one site is well worth a look. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, it is called mailorderhusbands.net. One of the adverts caught my attention.

My name is Daryl. I am 17, but will be turning 18 in September. I figure by the time we get to know each other I will be legal tender and we can marry. My parents are kicking me out after December and I'd like to meet a woman with a lot of money so we can have fun. I like women between 18-45, but would consider older if we do not have to touch a lot. Country: Wooster Falls, ILL, U.S.A.

I wish him the best of luck. Wouldn't it be great if he met his new bride to be through this, the McMuffins of Love site. Just think, what a boost a McMuffin wedding would give to our stats.

savings

This is the new savings account we have opened to see us through hard times. I am amazed Mr McMuffin even bought it and a companion card (which yielded £7, not a great deal of money, but a decent return on his investment) but glad to know that we have a fall back fund for when our pensions fail.

object of desire

Apple have finally released the new version of the iMac. As predicted, it is an all-in-one unit powered by a G5 processor. It is truly beautiful. I want one. I have been debating with myself about whether I need to have a 20" screen or whether a 17" screen more than big enough for the kind of computing that I do. I have decided to plump for the 17" model, after all this is the equivalent of a 19" CRT. I have used the money I will save to buy more memory, a larger hard drive, an Airport Express station, a wireless card and bluetooth module with keyboard and mouse. This would be an incredible set up. Have I mentioned that I want one. Now all I have to do is find the money.

• 1GB DDR400 SDRAM - 2 DIMMs
• 160GB Serial ATA drive
• AirPort Extreme Card
• AirPort Express Base Station with AirTunes
• Bluetooth Module + Wireless Keyboard & Mouse + Mac OS
• 17-inch TFT display
• 1.8GHz PowerPC G5
• DVD-R/CD-RW drive
• GeForce FX 5200 Ultra - 64MB DDR

Price: £1,497.00

By the way, why is the US version about £300 cheaper than the UK version in real money.

prison bitch

I found this through Lena at The Me Yet To Come. Apparently my prison bitch name is Mayonaise Queen. I don't know what is wrong with me, but that seems so right.

good things about this weekend

It has been lovely and warm.
Gypsy Tart is back from Crete and is now an advanced open water diver.
I am not as hungover as expected after going out on a 'siblings night out' with Gypsy 'Astrel' Tart, Mrs Carrot Cake and Single Cookie.
The house is clean, the garden is ok and Mr McMuffin changed the bedding.
Mr McMuffin completed his reports so I won't have to hear him moan about how hard they are to write.
I found a pair of trousers I had forgotten and they make my bum look good.
I read a really good book.
Evil bug appears to be abating.
We have got rid of trackback so we can't be spammed by filthy porn trackback scum.

Congratulations to David TEFLSmiler for getting a job in Iceland (not the frozen food shop but the home of Bjork), well done to you.

you don't know how lucky you are...

One of the things I have enjoyed about blogging is connecting with interesting people living different lives, often in different countries. Given my poor abilities in other languages, the 'other countries' have invariably been the US. I have also had the pleasure of meeting through work a lovely woman from the US who has chosen to practice in the UK in my team as a Social Worker. I have to say that I have really had my eyes opened by these experiences. I had no idea about why everyone went on about reducing taxes in the US, but with the things I have learned about the lack of employee benefits, the health system and poor welfare provision, I sort of understand now.

Anyway, I'm not trying to be critical as I'm sure there are lots of benefits to living in the US. One of the very good things from the US is The Station Agent, a lovely film which reminded me a lot of Leaving Normal. It was funny, sad, sweet and touching, and I'll remember Finn, Olivia and Joe for some time.

cooking with mrs mcmuffin update...

Mrs McMuffin has left the house to go to our local market in search of seasonal veg. As she was leaving she left me instructions on what I had to have done by the time she gets back. Ha!

there's a worm in my apple...

I am devastated. I thought I was special. I thought Apple loved me, and only me. They sent me this email today:

Dear .Mac Member,

You recently received an email that stated an incorrect storage increase amount for your .Mac account. The correct information is as follows:

Every full .Mac membership now comes with 250 MB of combined .Mac Mail and iDisk storage. Because we appreciate your past purchase of additional storage, we have increased your total storage to 1 GB for the duration of your current membership.

We regret any confusion the earlier email may have caused. We value your membership and hope you enjoy this enhancement to your .Mac service.

Sincerely,

The Mac Team

There is no way I am going to have Steve's babies now.

28 days...

...are all I have left before I start the new job I got flipping months ago. Before I start I am going to:

Get my hair cut

Go to 'Bliss' and spa like a fool (Last year's Christmas present from Mr McMuffin and I have looked forward to using it all year. So much so, that I actually haven't used it)

Locate my smarter clothes and organise my wardrobe

Sort the front garden out and decorate the hallway

See my GP and kill evil bug (it is not my friend, even though it has lived with me for about three months now)

Buy Christmas presents (I have never managed to get organised, ever)

See my parents (bad daughter)

an appeal on behalf of the please don't vote for george because he scares me party...

We try to keep away from politics on this site, but I need to say something to all our American readers. PLEASE do not vote for George W Bush on 2 November. I don't know much about US home politics, but I see the impact the US has had on the rest of the world over the last few years, and things definitely seem less safe since that man became President. If I am being truthful though, that man just offends me. I think I was one of the few people in the world who thought Forrest Gump was a terrible film. The idea that there is some kind of merit in not being very bright simply offends me. The idea that someone like GWB could become President offends me. Sure, I am sophisticated enough to understand that a lot of spin goes into making him look foolish, and I really don't care about whether he fought for your country or my country or whatever, what bothers me is that much of the evidence for his lack of brights comes out of his own mouth. I have never forgotten the sight of an American audience laughing AT GWB during an interview because of the inanities that were coming out of his mouth. I never thought I would see the day when Americans would laugh at the President. GWB certainly appears to have a significant learning difficulty. I don't want someone like that running the most powerful country in the world. I suppose the really scary bit about all of this is that if he isn't running the US, and he certainly doesn't seem to have the capacities to do that easily, then who is?

Look, I can appreciate the attraction of a leader who is able to make complex situations seem simple and straightforward. I think I would want that in a leader too, but only if I was fairly confident that they really did understand the complexities of the situation too. I am just not sure that GWB does.

I am not even advocating for John Kerry, but at least he just seems like your usual run of the mill bright, experienced, politician, the kind of person who seems to have the qualities you would expect to find in the leader of any country. I know that he has that unfortunate jaw and the nose, which will just keep getting bigger as he gets older (the nose is one of the few parts of your body that keeps growing throughout your life!) but at least he is the kind of person who can string a sensible sentence together. Please don't think of a vote for Kerry as a vote for Kerry, rather think of it as a vote against GWB.

Click here for an excellent, if a little biased, summary of the results of the Bush-Kerry debate.

gone all serious

So back to the banal. While Mr McMuffin has been thinking deep thoughts, I have mostly been going to the V&A and helping England win yesterday's match, by being forced to watch part of it. I tried to warn people that Wales lose if I watch them, but no one listened.

On my return Mr McMuffin had made a lovely meal for Mr McMuffin Jnr and his beau and we got pretty drunk. Well, I did and foolishly decided to demonstrate how to headbang. I can hardly move my neck now, so I suspect that will be my last performance ever. Should have filmed it, it was magnificent.

So I now have five days left at work, two weeks of leave and then I start the new job. I am a bit frightened of the responsibility and being really bad at it. I suppose that's not a bad thing, but it's not that pleasant.