Sunday 29 October 2006

i heart free stuff

i broke a new personal record this week: attending three tradeshows in two cities within the space of six days.

work kindly sent me to paris for SIAL, the "global food marketplace" that is held several times per year.

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the weather in paris was pretty dismal - rainy and windy - but we were sheltered inside the massive expanse next to charles de gaulle airport known as parc des expositions.

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one of SIAL's selling points is that the booths are grouped by type - meat, veg, cheese - and/or region, so we were part of the japan pavilion. it was fun to walk around and sample food from other parts of the world as well. it certainly had the feel of being on an international gastronomic tour. although i prefer tea to coffee, i couldn't resist visiting the illy booth at least once a day.

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while we were in paris, we also stopped by the digipack congress. compared to SIAL, it was dinky, but the packaging industry gets its own turn at parc des expositions next month. i'm trying to find a way to get sent back over for work again... :)

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finally, back in blighty, s and i made our weekend pilgrimage to macexpo.

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perhaps i shouldn't say this on my blog, but our good friend, m, suggested that we might be attending next month's erotica show at kensington olympia instead... you'd think she'd know us well enough to know that apple products are what really get our juices flowing.

ahem.

but alas, we were there so late in the day that most of the (what we assume must have been) cool free stuff was already gone. s has his eye on a new macbook pro to replace his dead ibook G3, and i wouldn't turn down a black macbook to match my black ipod (although i'm still content with my trusty ibook G4 for now). nice that the holidays are around the corner.

hey, steve jobs & santa claus:
feel free to contribute to our apple fund!
your ever loyal,
s & b

Wednesday 11 October 2006

britishisms

you have probably heard some of the common words that are different in american english and british english:

elevator / lift
trunk / boot

and you know that spelling varies:

color/colour
organization/organisation

but there are some words that are used in everyday british english that just sound downright pretentious in american english. i love those words and endeavo(u)r to incorporate them into my vocabulary. so here is a spotlight on four of them.

bespoke
as in bespoke tailoring, bespoke catering, and even bespoke pizza toppings
means "custom made" or "made to order"
check out this explanation of "bespoke" here

fortnight
as in "i haven't even worked at my new company for a fortnight yet."
means "two weeks"
neat. tidy. to the point.

penultimate
as in "this is the penultimate word in my list of fab britishisms."
means "second to last"
this is a truly wonderful word and americans should take it upon themselves to use it more often. most likely, the only time you even heard it was on a list of obscure words that might appear on the SAT if the testers were feeling exceptionally cruel that year.

shambolic
as in "the service at that restaurant was shambolic."
means "disorderly or chaotic"
my ear is still not fully attuned to the word "shambolic" and i often hear it, associate it with a positive comment offering praise about something, and then realize it means the exact opposite. shambolic.

and finally, to sign off: ta ra!

Thursday 5 October 2006

banter two

went to hear another recording of banter last weekend. still funny!

but what was truly exciting was listening to the previous episode on radio 4 on wednesday. listen to it here and see if you can catch our applause :)

Sunday 1 October 2006

london life: phase three


when i first came to london, i had envisioned spending one year as a student and one year working here. what i hadn't counted on was the year in between of meeting s and getting married, job searching all the while. i certainly have no complaints about the way things have turned out. and as of tomorrow, i will officially join the u.k. work force (another damn immigrant taking a british job - ha.)

unlike acechick, i harbor no desires to be "dooced", so i plan to keep work-related blog entries to a minimum. suffice it to say, i trust that working full-time for the first time in two years will not be a harrowing experience. on the contrary, i am looking forward to being in a warehouse surrounded by pocky and rice.

issho kenmei, ganbarimasu yo! *

* i will endeavor to do my best