Monday, June 30, 2008

James at the Weekend

hey everyone

well, after a brief flirtation with being rather proud to pose for pictures, James is once again back to his habit of running away or turning around whenever the camera is out. i was, however, able to snap a few pics when Grandma and Grandad came over to visit and play!!

first off here we are with Grandad, playing nicely in the garden and wearing his smart new Pickled Pig shirt. it's a very nice and smart gift from Grandma and Grandad from their trip away last weekend.





and yes, those who know me well, it is true that if those black and white stripes were vertical rather than horizontal, no there is no way that i would let him wear it!!

James and Grandad had enormous fun running about in the garden, just before Grandad decided it would be a good idea to hack at least one of our trees down to nearly nothing on the promise that it might grow back all busy, and then filling in a hole in the garden. that was surrounded by some sort of small fencing, but fencing that all the same offended him. nice one, we should really draw up a list of things we would like done on a DIY level before Grandad arrives!!





now, is it just me, or does the above picture show something of a (ahem) "miskick" from James?????

Grandma was involved in the fun too, but rather wisely decided not to try and run around to keep up with him!!





and yes, eagle eyed viewers, the deflated (probably punctured) crab pool has subsequently been folded away in the hope that the grass grows back. on the orders of Grandad, of course!!

and here's a pic of James almost standing still for a picture.....





....followed by one where he did manage to keep still for just enough seconds for the camera to do its thing!!!!!





hope you all had a great weekend, we certainly did!!!!



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Primal Scream - Beautiful Future

there's litte or no point in comparing any new Primal Scream album to anything they have done before; the band tends to discard the past as history and feels no obligation to compete with themselves when they move on to a new venture. that said, many may be, shall we say, pleased to hear that with Beautiful Future, the boys have moved away from the "experimental" quasi-country rock sound that was Riot City Blues.

Mani, the king of all who play bass, has often expressed a wish to record all all out disco, ABBA influenced record. i am not sure if he has been saying this prior to the release of this album, but Beautiful Future is about as close as we are going to get to that or just a flat out pop album. the boys have perhaps been checking out some of the Eurovision Song Contest entries to get inspiration for this album. believe me, this is no bad thing. Eurovision converted to Screamovision is quite a class sound.

the lead single, it being the rather dazzling Can't Let Go, does not really set the tone for what you will hear on the rest of the album. it's a quality funky rock tune in itself, but the rest of the album goes more funky, less rock. a good indicatior is the proposed second single, The Glory Of Love.


in regards of outstanding tracks, i would highlight Uptown and Suicide Bomb as tracks that require your most earnest and immediate attention. featuring sparse to non-existant vocals, these two tracks highlight The Scream doing what The Scream does - devastating musical fury, with all and sundry showing that they know exactly how to make people pay attention to the noise they generate.



you can add the joys of Zombie Man to that list too, i guess. Zombie Man is a pretty decent song as-is on the album, but i think this one is destined to be grabbed by the remix gurus and transformed into something amazing. watch out for white labels of guys who tear this one apart and reconstruct it.

elswhere on the album one can find Fleetwood Mac's Over and Over get a Scream cover treatement that's as reassuringly Screamerised as every other cover the band has tackled. there's also something akin to a nod to 80's nostalgia with the track Beautiful Summer; the melody certainly makes at the least a passing nod to Bananarama's Cruel Summer. listening to the track, you get the feeling that they really, really wanted to throw in a straight out 80's pop cover on this album, not quite sure why they didn't. who knows, perhaps something will turn up on a b-side or cd single soon.......

the only down note of Primal Scream Beautiful Future is that it is, sadly, probably the only decent, above average album released thus far in 2008. everything else has just had a sound of contractually obliged, "this will do" all over it. at least this band is still making music because they want to.

again, i affilate with no website, but i have to reccomend that you purchase this album from the excellent recordstore.co.uk. it's run by music lovers for music lovers and they ship quality vibes worldwide.


be excellent to each other, but more importantly, be thankful that Bobby Gillespie walks upon the same earth as we do.................

Friday, June 27, 2008

Primal Scream returns!!

well, there were rumours about some new Primal Scream stuff coming out this year; i guess they are true!!

the new single from the lads, Can't Go Back, is out on July 14, and so you are of course encouraged to buy it.

there are some good deals around for it, but best of the lot as usual is the chaps at record store.co.uk, wo are selling it as a bundle of the 7" and the CD. they also have a download option but, alas, that's only available to people in the UK. nonetheless, i urge you to click here to order now!


now, as much as i love Primal Scream, as any quality music fan does, i do hope this is in a different direction from the last effort, Riot City Blues. not bad at all, but a bit too much country and western for my usual tastes!

anyway, welcome back Bobby, Mani and the gang!

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Dying Is Hard. Comedy Is Harder.

The honest truth is, for a comedian, even death is just a premise to make jokes about. I know this because I was on the phone with George Carlin nine days ago and we were making some death jokes. We were talking about Tim Russert and Bo Diddley and George said: “I feel safe for a while. There will probably be a break before they come after the next one. I always like to fly on an airline right after they’ve had a crash. It improves your odds.”

I called him to compliment him on his most recent special on HBO. Seventy years old and he cranks out another hour of great new stuff. He was in a hotel room in Las Vegas getting ready for his show. He was a monster.

You could certainly say that George downright invented modern American stand-up comedy in many ways. Every comedian does a little George. I couldn’t even count the number of times I’ve been standing around with some comedians and someone talks about some idea for a joke and another comedian would say, “Carlin does it.” I’ve heard it my whole career: “Carlin does it,” “Carlin already did it,” “Carlin did it eight years ago.”

And he didn’t just “do” it. He worked over an idea like a diamond cutter with facets and angles and refractions of light. He made you sorry you ever thought you wanted to be a comedian. He was like a train hobo with a chicken bone. When he was done there was nothing left for anybody.

But his brilliance fathered dozens of great comedians. I personally never cared about “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” or “FM & AM.” To me, everything he did just had this gleaming wonderful precision and originality.
I became obsessed with him in the ’60s. As a kid it seemed like the whole world was funny because of George Carlin. His performing voice, even laced with profanity, always sounded as if he were trying to amuse a child. It was like the naughtiest, most fun grown-up you ever met was reading you a bedtime story.

I know George didn’t believe in heaven or hell. Like death, they were just more comedy premises. And it just makes me even sadder to think that when I reach my own end, whatever tumbling cataclysmic vortex of existence I’m spinning through, in that moment I will still have to think, “Carlin already did it.”


-Jerry Seinfeld

Monday, June 23, 2008

Comedian George Carlin dies at 71

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Comedian George Carlin, a counter-culture hero famed for his routines about drugs and dirty words, died of heart failure at a Los Angeles-area hospital on Sunday, a spokesman said. He was 71.

Carlin, who had a history of heart and drug-dependency problems, died at Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica about 6 p.m. PDT (2 a.m. British time) after being admitted earlier in the afternoon for chest pains, spokesman Jeff Abraham told Reuters.

Known for his edgy, provocative material, Carlin achieved status as an anti-Establishment icon in the 1970s with stand-up bits full of drug references and a routine called "Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television." A regulatory battle over a radio broadcast of the routine ultimately reached the U.S. Supreme Court.
In the 1978 case, Federal Communications Commission vs. Pacifica Foundation, the top U.S. court ruled that the words cited in Carlin's routine were indecent, and that the government's broadcast regulator could ban them from being aired at times when children might be listening.

Carlin's comedic sensibility often came back to a central theme: humanity is doomed.
"I don't have any beliefs or allegiances. I don't believe in this country, I don't believe in religion, or a god, and I don't believe in all these man-made institutional ideas," he told Reuters in a 2001 interview.
Carlin, who wrote several books and performed in many television comedy specials, is survived by his wife Sally Wade, and daughter Kelly Carlin McCall.



George Carlin was one of the funniest comedians i ever had the pleasure of hearing. goodbye and thank you, sir.

Saturday, June 21, 2008

the many celebrations of Daniel. and, why not?

hey everyone

earlier in June our dear family member Daniel turned one. my most fluent and sincere, as well as earnest apologies for not doing much in the way of posting at the time. let me make some amends for this with a mega, or if you will "uber" post in celebration of the various celebratory events held for Daniel!!

now, as far as i can ascertain, Gillian has held some 20 - 30 parties to Daniel in celebration of his 1st birthday. my apologies if i do not cover all of the events my sister decided to hold, but i have tried to include as much as i can! i think this is from one of the first parties, or at least from one of the first dozen parties arranged by Gillian.





nice one, although you can't see it in the pic, it looks like a great park to let the kids run wild in! there's also evidence of a combustion engine driven automated vehicle in the background (ie the blue car), which is an interesting insight into life in New Zealand. as far as i could make out from The Lord Of The Rings everyone was really short and just walked everywhere?

and now, the best part of birthdays, the presents!!





Daniel looks well chuffed with his collection of gifts, and Katie looks equally excited about the idea of "helping" her brother to open them!!


and now an ace pic - cake, kids, candle and Grant!!





Katie looks rather excited about getting in to the cake, it appears that Daniel is well into the cake already, and as for Grant, well, he looks happy and delighted, but he also looks like he is considering the sheep (ahem) shearing that he no doubt had planned to go and do later. alone. when everyone else is asleep. and no one is watching.


moving right along, Grant shows that their is no stopping him with a camera, as Mummy sneaks into a picture.





i see old habits die rather hard, as Gillian is taking away the chocolate cake before Daniel and Katie are finished with it. for their own good, mind, there can be no doubt that Gillian would have intended to "take care" of all the "left over" cake for Daniel and Katie herself. doing to the cake very much what Grant would be doing to the sheep as he was off (ahem) shearing in them. in private. whilst everyone else is asleep. etc, etc.


moving right along, here's images for the most recent party for Daniel. going on Gillian's account, the celebrations took the form of seeing who could eat as many sausage rolls as possible. that such cooked items are available in New Zealand is a further revelation; as per Lord Of The Rings there was a view in the world that all anyone ate in NZ was massive clumps of bread and some odd looking cheese. whilst walking across fields. for hours.




nice one, that looks like an ace party!!


now, some sound advice we got was do not have the number of other children exceed the age of the birthday child at parties. this would mean one child at a first birthday, two for the second and so forth. in her ambitious plans to hold enough celebrations for everyone in New Zealand to attend and allow for the odd passing visitor from Bern, Berlin or even Doncaster, however, Gillian seems to have kicked the doors open to allow everyone to have a good time!

Daniel, however, seems rather keen to have taken a bit of a break and have his own party with a sausage roll, away from all the shenanigans and events that Mummy had arranged.





a very wise move, Daniel. it is always a good idea to take a time out and have some "me time". like Grant does when he says he is going to play tennis. near the field with all the sheep in. the field that belongs to the farmer that goes to bed early. that no one can see who's doing what with any ease from the side of the road.


i read this and wonder why exactly Grant seems reluctant to send me pictures featuring his good self in them???


anyway, Daniel and gang, we are really very sorry that we could not be at any of the parties Gillian arranged. we will, with some good luck and fortune, be there to celebrate with you one of these years!!!



be excellent to each other!!!

Dark Knight - poster number 100

well, with the film now less than a month away, it seems they have decided to release yet another Dark Knight poster. no bad thing really, although i think we all just wish to see the film and hope it is more like Iron Man, very much less like Indiana Jones 4.

in a rather curious move, they have released another kind of "teaser" promo for this film; believe it or not you can download a rather good quality scene from the film right now if you wish!! simply click here to be taken to the link on the rather class why so serious promo site, and happy viewing times are yours!!! the clip is relatively spoiler free, although if you have been paying attention to all the updates and news there's a few clues to the plot visible, and one big aspect of it all that you can sort of see.....


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

hello New Zealand

hey everyone


i am surprised i have not been pestered for an apology of late, really. after giving digs about not sending pictures for ages, Gillian and Grant have sent a load of late, and i have not put any up here!! oh well, as time allows me to do so, let me do so!!

first off, here is evidence that Gillian is keen to get a good work ethic into Katie as soon as possible, since she appears to have her doing the dishes!!





and whilst Katie gets on with the dishes, it would appear that Daniel gets given the task of sitting around looking cute!!





i have many pics of the many birthday parties Daniel appears to have had in June, i will do my best to put some up here!!!!


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thursday, June 19, 2008

nine thousand nine hundred and forty five

hey everyone

sorry if this is tiresome for you all by now, but as per the below i have contacted the Post Office to remind them of my missing parcels - a magnificent seven in total when i reported it.

it was rather hard work to get it reported, they wanted to just issue me with a reference number without me even giving any information!!

when i finally did manage to give them the details of all my missing parcels, i let them give me the reference number. it was, as you will no doubt have guess, 9945. on the basis of their system, mine is the 9945th complaint they have received year to date.

and in the press release as posted below they claim to have not received any complaints at all about this matter. are they seriously expecting anyone to believe that not one of the 9944 complaints before mine related to all of this??

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Post Office Responds - Sort of

after our actual independent press gave coverage to the story of amazon.com blocking post to South Africa, the Post Office has kind of given a response. i say actual independent as the main broadcaster in the country, the SABC, is owned by the government like the Post Office is, and thus declined to report. further, the radio station that spends so much time claiming to be independent, the dire, amateur Talk Radio 702, happen to be broadcasting a number of expensive adverts for the Post Office at present, and so - rather bewilderingly - they today, in particular between 4 - 6pm, tried to dress the problem up as being that somehow customers with missing/stolen amazon parcels were in fact the thieves!!!!

here is the full press release from the Post Office, then. i am not sure if i am supposed to include the telephone numbers, but then again they sent them out - if you feel a need to do anything with the information, knock yourself out.


Post Office appeals to customers to assist in resolving Amazon issue

The South African Post Office is concerned and dismayed at the decision of Amazon.com not to send material through the standard or expedited postal services to South Africa. The decision was both unexpected and regrettable as the Post Office was neither informed nor contacted by Amazon.com in regard to this decision, nor given any opportunity to resolve any issues which the international organisation may have.

At this stage, it appears that the standard and expedited shipping options are not available on the Amazon.com website - the only shipping option now offered is Priority Shipping to South Africa. Customers should note that all orders placed before today will still be delivered through the normal mail as far as the Post Office is aware, and customers will receive their purchases in the normal way. The Amazon.co.uk site is still providing normal shipping to South Africa.

“As a member of the Universal Postal Union, we strive to ensure that our postal service is in line with international standards and over the past year significant improvements have been made in-line with security and postal theft. In addition, our Crime-buster hot-line has not registered one complaint about a lost or misplaced Amazon item in the past year,” says Post Office spokesperson, Lungile Lose.

The Post Office is asking customers who have experienced a problem with their Amazon order in the past six months, or who have not received their current orders in the expected time period to please call the Post Office customer line on 0860 111 502 so that the seriousness of the Amazon claim can be more fully investigated.
The Post Office will instigate communication with the postal administration service used by Amazon.com in order to discuss the situation and will report back to customers on the outcome of this engagement.



Issued by: Lungile Lose
General Manager: Communication, South African Post Office
Tel: 012 401 7704

Tel: (012) 401-7711 Fax: 0866 875 683



personally, i was rather taken by the comment "In addition, our Crime-buster hot-line has not registered one complaint about a lost or misplaced Amazon item in the past year". rather strange, as in the last year i have logged at least two incidents, more if you make that the last 18 months. they are, then, either just lying for some obscure reason or do not keep a track of any complaints forwarded to them. my money would be on both being the case.

thanks to all who have hit the Post Office site today to lodge complaints about the theft going on, i believe they crashed one or two times under the volumes, which is probably the only reason that they responded. by all means do keep hitting the site, as i am missing one edition of a magazine and a letter from my grandmother.

it is rather odd that one has to try and persuade a Company of the size of a national Post Office not to steal things and not to hire thieves, but if bombarding them with comments along those lines gives them something to think about, why not?


be excellent to each other, except of course to greedy thieves that work at the Post Office.....................

Amazon blacklists South African Post Office

Johannesburg - Rampant theft by Post Office workers has infuriated internet retailing giant Amazon so much that it will no longer send goods to South Africa by post, Business Day has reported.

Anyone wanting to order directly from the US-based website must now pay for a private courier service adding about R420 to the price of a DVD.

No one from the Post Office would comment. No other African country's postal service had been blacklisted by Amazon, Business Day said.


this is just priceless! exactly how many thieves do they employ?

it was bad enough that the South African Post Office was just plain incompetent, now it seems their levels of theft are so impressive that they can't be trusted to do the most basic of jobs they are paid to do!

i encourage all readers of this site to bombard their customer comment section with as many negative comments as possible about this!!

Monday, June 16, 2008

The Further Faces Of Richard

well, i can't for the life of me think who would want to see Richard making more gestures that one might consider rude or offensive, but just in case one or two of you do, here you go!


here is Richard cooking some class ribs!





here is Richard giving a special message to all his fans!!





and here are the class ribs!! are they still ribs if they are deboned?





and here's Richard having a nice sit down after cooking quality ribs!





and finally, a special message from Richard as he sits down!





erm, hope you enjoyed them! Grant, i ate all the ribs on your behalf!!


be excellent to each other!!!!

Magnificent Middelburg

hey everyone

well, on Saturday there was something akin to a great trek going on, as we went off to Middelburg with Grandma and Grandad to go and see Richard, Erika and Lyla.

as i mentioned in my earlier posts, the three of them have not been at all well of late. i am delighted to say that they are all now much better, and further delighted to say that we were all able to go and see them, all fit and well and doing rather nicely indeed!!

James loves any opportunity to see Lyla and Grandma. if there is the margin to kick a ball around at the same time, well, so much the better!!





and, of course, James just loves Grandad to bits! there's always plenty of fun things to do and see with Grandad around, this time it was watching Grandad apparently throw nothing in to the air and catch it in a bag!! Lyla seems to be equally impressed!!





all were rather keen to watch as Grandad bamboozled James and Lyla with this rather astonishing trick. all were also interested to see James apparently give Lyla the nothing to throw, and then try to take it back from her!!





not that Lyla and James do not get on; James thrills at taking Lyla for a good walk around everywhere. he does, however, tend to drag her a little bit, as those little legs of hers are not quite up to the speed that James marches around!!





and finally, James still displays his newfound love of posing for pictures, so i am able to get pictures like this one!!





thanks again to Richard, Lyla and Erika for a great afternoon and a fantastic lunch, and of course thank you to Grandma and Grandad for driving us through to go and see everyone!

hope you all had a good weekend!!!


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

movie lovers! try my new quizzes!!

hey everyone

a shameless plug for all my hard work, but hopefully some of you will have fun with these!!!


Flixster is one of the greatest sites on the whole wide interwebnetwork thingie, and you can do and create quizzes on it! i have done a few, but i am rather pleased with my latest two!






why not see if you can guess all the films that i have described in five words or less?

or, if you like the man pictured, you can try working out which Clin Eastwood films i have described in five words or less!!

don't forget to register a Flixster profile first, quick and easy to do!

good luck!!!

double celebration Sunday!!

hey everyone

well, Sunday was a busy day! as well as being Father's Day, James turned two and a half, or, if you will in his words, "twoo 'alf". every day is a good day to have fun, but there was double reason for us to do it! Mummy certainly spoiled the both of us anyway!!





i took James off to see his friend and mine, Steve at Chilli Vinyl, and was able to pick up some excellent new records, notably an awesome double set of The Who, as well as the best of Jason Donovan. Michele has expressed an interest in me not playing one of those two, guess which!

otherwise, we went on our usual Sunday shopping spree, and it was this fine Sunday that James decided to see what would happen if he picked up a box of eggs and drop it on the floor. oh dear! the staff of the shop were most understanding, at the least!!

hope you all had a most excellent weekend!!!


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Mod Revolution

following a rather wise, and to a degree inspirational, suggestion from Howard, i am currently contemplating the ways and means of starting something of a Mod revolution in the world around me.

this idea of being a Pete Townshend double is a rather class one - i dare say that i could manage to "windmill" a guitar and i have no doubt that i could do a pretty good job of smashing up equipment too. if i have the ability to play the guitar to within a single degree of the skill Mr Townshend has, however, is a question that could be easily answered with a categoric, resounding no.

i am doing the next best thing, i guess, which would be playing this fine album from the above mentioned genius and his band, as it celebrates all things Mod.





the ipod thingie, for reasons best known to itself, threw up Bell Boy at random 3 (three!) times last week, a clear sign as it has some 4000 tracks to randomly play. nice one!!

and, as winter has dawned here and dispensed her harsh cold winds, James goes about his days in a rather smart jacket we got for him. is it me, for a moment, or does James not have something of a Mod look to him in it??





James, like i would imagine most of his age, usually does not like the cumbersome ways of wearing a jacket or extra jumpers, but he appears to have taken something of a shine to this one. nice one, it looks rather smart on the lad!!





it is also not a million miles away, in style if not size of course, from being rather like my beloved green jacket, now long since gone. i think there's a glimpse of it in the Riverside picture of me somewhere on this site, if one is inclined to compare!


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!

build it, Grandad!

hey everyone

well, after a tour of the Alamo and other sites in America, Dad is now back home. James was particularly delighted by this, although when we told him that he had gone in an aeroplane, James remained adamant that Grandad was in an aeroplane all the time until such time as he saw him again!

and see him he did this weekend, with a class gift in town. Grandad combined James' love of building things and aero-based means of travel rather nicely with a very class Lego helicopter set.

for some reason, however, Grandad thought that he was not going to build it with James. those thoughts were soon dispensed with, and the inevitable but fun happened next!





Grandma was called on to help, as indeed was Mummy at one stage! it looks like a rather complex helicopter to put together, or at the least those who were involved in building it made it seem so!





the finished article is rather impressive, but also rather loaded with small, edibile and easy to lose parts. much to James' frustration, then, it sits upon a reasonably high shelf!!!


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!

get well soon all of you!

hey everyone

oh dear, as soon as Erika and Lyla are taken ill, it seems that Richard has caught whatever they had.





our hopes that all are fit and well together soon!

Monday, June 09, 2008

get well soon, Lyla

hey everyone

oh dear, Lyla is not feeling too well at the moment. she's had a rough weekend, but at the least seems to be well on the mend.





we are all sorry that we can't all be there to help right now, but we are all thinking of Richard, Erika and dear Lyla at the moment.

good luck, and let's hope all are on the mend soon!

Friday, June 06, 2008

not everybody does it, but everybody should...

many moons ago, i think about 21 years worth of moons for the record, i had the distinct pleasure of buying the 7" of George Michael's I Want Your Sex for a young lady called Caroline.

i mention it only as a memory test - i have been most delighted to hear from Caroline after many (obviously too many) years, and, as she has the address for this interwebnet site thingie of mine, i thought i would leave a little something to take her on a jog down memory lane. as if my rambles about all things 80's wouldn't do that!

Caroline, who would have thought all those years ago that, with this song, he probably wanted mine more than yours!!!


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Cake + Candles = Delighted James

James, thankfully, tends to love the very simple things of life. this is no bad thing, and we encourage him with it. one of his greatest passions, at least of the last six or so months, has been to sing Happy Birthday for anyone that it occurs to him to sing for; if there is a cake with candles on it to blow out well, so much the better for him!!

you don't need to accept just my word for this at all, i believe the picture below as they are all busy with Erika's birthday cake should show his enthusiasm for birthday celebrations!





the next round of birthdays are only in August, if i remember correctly. oh dear! i dare say we shall have to pick up the odd cake, and have some semi-celebrations for any number of his beloved Dinosaur or Batman toys!

James also quite likes eating birthday cake, as much as he loves blowing out the candles, but as you can see below, Lyla seems far more interested in just getting on with eating it!





if i recall correctly, convention suggests that it should be the birthday girl, in this case Erika, who gets to blow out the candles and bother the design of the cake. no chance of that whatsoever with James around!!





it is a delight to see Lyla watching cousin James get on with it with a sense of awe and anticipation!! note the half eaten gingerbread man there - James loves them too, but soon dispenses with them when he has either had enough, or if some birthday cake comes along!!!


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!

Uncle Matt!

May is something of a birthday festival in our family. we celebrated the birthdays of, from James' perspective, Great Grandad Norman, Daft Uncle Richard, Nice Auntie Erika, Uncle Grant The Shepherd, Grandad, Mummy and Uncle Matt. in respect of the latter, i am delighted to post this pic of Lyla visiting Matt!





now, i don't know about you, but the first thing i thought of when i saw this picture of Matt is that his dress style and glasses reminded me of Gene Hackman as Brill in the class film Enemy Of The State. sadly, i have been unable to find a picture of Hackman dressed the same on the interwebnet for a comparison!



be excellent to each other!!!!!

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

this way, cousin!!!

hi everyone

well, last weekend James got to spend some quality time with two of the many ladies in his life, Lyla and Grandma! James was delighted by the fact that Lyla is now reasonably comfortable walking, and took that as reason to take her by the hand and drag her all around Grandma's house, showing her all the wonderful things that Grandma and Grandad have there!!





the two of them tend to have fun together for the most part, but i am led to believe that as soon as one of them wants to play with one toy, the other then all of a sudden decides that they wish to too, and a "disagreement" of sorts tends to erupts. oh well, it normally ends with the two of them giving each other a hug and a kiss!





and here's dinner time. as far as i can work out, James is using one of his class Batman or Superman juice bottles to fill up Lyla's cup. well, it is a cup of sorts, it appears to me as a bowl from the class ice cream place across the road from Grandma's house!





there's plenty more pictures for me to try and get up here, but there's also plenty on my desk at verk these days. i shall do my best!!!!


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!