Robin's First Pantomime

I'll start with explaining a Pantomime because I didn't really know what it was - apparently it's a very English thing. It's a musical comedy stage production which is put on around Christmas time but the show itself is not necessarily about Christmas. It involves a lot of crowd participation - ie, the actors turning to the audience and asking "what should I do?" and the crowd shouting back. It apparently begin as opera but no longer is such. Steve says it's tradition in a Pantomime for the lead male/boy role to be played by a woman and for the pantomime "dame" to be played by a man. Of course these elements are not unfamiliar to me but I've never specifically been to a Pantomime. You can read more about it here.

So last night, the Salford City Reds Community Department and local Pendleton College held a Pantomime at the rugby's variety center. Several lines included jokes about Salford, Manchester and local areas, including the rugby team and the football (soccer) teams (Manchester City and Manchester United). Oh and two of our players were briefly in the show twice. Although it's geared towards kids, there were a lot of adult jokes in it too, in order to entertain the parents. This particularly Pantomime was based on "Aladdin". Surprisingly, it was really good! I even literally laughed out loud several times. And the photography experience was great. Although I was officially only there to get shot of the rugby players on stage for PR, I took the opportunity to shoot the whole show. The community department wants to give my photos to Pendleton College so I'm hoping it peaks their interest in using me for other events they have.

I'm still processing the photos but once I'm done and picked the best ones, I'll post them. So stay tuned!

Thanksgiving

As most of you know, Steve and I had our own Thanksgiving dinner here in England (so nice to see everyone on webcam!). We invited our friends Pete and Amanda over to share it with us. We would have liked to invited more people but unfortunately, our apartment and our dinner table aren't big enough.

I was tempted to take some pictures of everyone and maybe even bring out the video cam because the whole reason we bought it was for times like these. But as we all know, Steve HATES being on camera and Amanda is no better so sometimes it's like a battle to get some simple pictures. Add to that the fact that Amanda wasn't feeling well (the poor girl had a fever of 101 - seriously, she should have stayed home!) so I didn't want to push it.

I did, however, get some pictures of the table partially set and of Steve cooking (face not included).





Oh! I forgot to mention! It appears adventures in cooking are never complete in our home without some kind of disaster. Steve had turned the stove on to boil the potatoes - he'd turned on one in the front and one on the back, thinking he'd put the pot on the back burner and then move it forward (not sure why). Well, he forgot and while holding a kitchen towel over the stove, it brushed the hot uncovered one and started smouldering! Luckily, it did not burst into flames and we did not set off the fire alarm, lol. We quickly ran it under cold water and all was well after that - well, expect for the side of the foil roasting pan giving out and dumping hot butter, oil and turkey juices all over the oven door. But I think that's enough excitement for the day!

New Coat

My old coat was getting kind of dirty and worn - plus, since I lost a bit of weight, it was a little too baggy. So I just got a new coat:



Cute, huh?

Printer is UP and running (sort of)

So I've finally been getting my Canon i9900 up and running again. I was first delayed due to confusion about voltage (US printer in the UK, didn't want to ) but Dad contacted Canon and got it sorted out. I then got the printer drivers installed and started printing pretty easily BUT the prints had lines on them. After 5 print head deep cleans, it was finally printing cleanly - but within 5 minutes, my laptop sporadically blue screened! So I rebooted and printed off ONE 4x6 photo only to be told my cyan ink had run out! Of course it's an easily solved problem but it's just annoying. Well, at least the one photo I managed to get out of it looks great.

SO... let the print orders begin! Who wants what?

I'm SUCH an idiot!

I've just realized that the BBC TV show "Spooks" IS aired on BBC America! It's just under a different name! "MI-5"! Unfortunately, BBC America's website is terrible and I can not for the life of me find out WHEN it's aired! But that's okay because I highly suggest everyone in the US buy the DVD's to get caught up anyway:

MI-5 DVDs on Amazon!

Since I originally thought it wasn't aired over there, I figured there would also be no DVDs available in US region. But since there is, I'm half tempted to buy this as a Christmas present for all of you because it's THAT good and you will love it.

Let there be WATER!

Our water is back - not at full pressure but still, low pressure is better than no pressure. Hopefully it won't go off again!

Oh Good

So half an hour ago, someone was banging loudly on our apartment door - not just ours but obviously everyone's. It was a maintenance guy... and anyone who has ever lived in an apartment building knows that when the maintenance guy knocks on your door at 9pm, it's never a good thing.

There is another water leak. They are turning our water off again. They left it on for half an hour so everyone could fill their buckets to flush their toilets. And they said it should be back on tomorrow but we've heard that one before, haven't we? So who knows. Seriously, this is getting absurd! I thought this was all done and over with back in June but here we are again.

This, plus all the other issues we've had here, such as the paint peeling off the ceiling in the bathroom from the humidity and the lights ceasing to work whenever we replace a bulb (seriously, we're down to ONE overhead light in the bedroom). And the shower head in the bathtub will not switch off and revert back to the faucet. Oh and lets not forget the great shower leak of 2007, a result of the shower not being caulked properly. It's so obvious this place was cheaply built but it's not cheap to buy or rent. Someone has made a fortune and doesn't care that everyone else is getting ripped off.

I need to go meditate or something before I pop a blood vessel or whatever from pure rage.