Adventures in Pumpkin Carving land

This is going to be more of a really long "photo blog" entry than a regular entry. Ladies and Gentlemen, I proudly present to you... the Hanging Hat's grand adventures in Pumpkin Carving land.


The pumpkins to be massacred


The implements that were needed in order to carry out the massacaring


The mini test pumpkin and test pattern


The massacre begins...


...and the result (mini test pumpkin with mini friend)


Now onto the big pumpkin...mwuhahah! First, the image we are going to use.


Putting the pattern onto the pumpkin


Cutting off the top and cleaning out the innards before getting stuck into the hacking and slashing


...And the eventual result from the hacking and slashing


Oh! And just in case you were wondering; The other pumpkin also got hacked and slashed


Thus ended the grand adventures of the Hanging Hat in pumpkin carving land for another year. Actually, that was so much fun I'm contemplating heading down to the store tomorrow when all the pumpkins will be going cheap due to post halloween pumpkin sales and getting another one to hack up.

Raccoons And Bears, Oh My!

I saw my first raccoon the other night as I was walking into my apartment. It was the first live raccoon I'd ever seen and it was less than 3 meters away from me walking on the fence.

Those suckers be big! It stopped momentarily and gave me the beady eye as if it was getting ready to hop off the fence and run into the building behind me so I promptly got inside and shut the door before it could make its move.

I wish I had my camera with me at the time. I'm sure the raccoon would have attempted to rob it off me but it would have been worth it. Now every time I walk outside or into the apartment I'm always on the lookout for raccoons.

Also, in the last couple of days, just walking around I've noticed an increasing number of signs outside shop windows advertising "Bear Spray"! Is this a necessity in Vancouver in the Autumn months? Do the bears start coming out soon? And is a little spray bottle really good enough to keep a big hulking bear from charging you down and ripping you to shreds?? I for one will take my chances without the spray and on the odd chance of ever bumping into a bear will use the time tested method of running and screaming like a little girl.... or was that lie down and play dead? Those two always confuse me.

Simple K

It's 4am and I'm sitting here not ready to go to bed yet. Back home in Ireland if I was still awake at this hour I'd go and pour myself a nice bowl of Special K (or "Simple K" as an American friend keeps accidentally calling them) as a post post midnight snack. I'm not much of a cereal person. In fact I wouldn't really have cereal at all but every now and again I do really enjoy a bowl of Special K.

As luck would have it I bought myself some Special K yesterday while out shopping. Oh how unprepared was I for the disappointment that was to follow.

Now, to say that some things are a little different in North America than to things in Europe would be putting it mildly here. The Special K in North America tastes nothing like the Special K in Ireland. It is essentially just Rice Krispies. In fact if I blind folded you and fed you a bowl of Rice Krispies and a bowl of North American Special K you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. In fact, you can hear the "Snap, Crackle and Pop" from the Special K flakes when you add the milk! Imagine Rice Kripies being a little bit flatter instead of roundish then what you have is North American Special K. I wonder does the "K" in "Special K" stand for "Krispies"? Hmmm... Now I know why my American friend keeps calling it "Simple K".

I've just had a thought, if Special K here tastes like Rice Krispies perhaps the opposite will be true? Must go buy myself some Rice Krispies tomorrow and put that theory to the test.

Still Here And Gone

I'm still around. Just haven't bothered updating this blog in a loooooong time due to laziness on my part.

I've moved cities and countries since my last update. As of 3 weeks ago, I'm now living in Vancouver, Canada. That's right, I've sold almost everything I own in Dublin and upped and moved several thousand miles across the world. So as a new beginning I'm going to try once again to keep this blog active and update it more often than once every 3 months or so. That should hopefully keep my 3 faithful readers happy... you know who youse are ;-)

So, Vancouver in 3 words.... Lovely, Relaxed, Rainy. OK, that last part isn't entirely true. The first 2 and a half weeks I've been here its been really super sunny. Its only really started to rain in the last couple of days and according to the weather its going to be like this for the rest of the week. I was warned that it rains a lot here. I guess I was just lucky in terms of the weather when I landed.

I've spent these last couple of weeks here looking for a place to live and a job. Just got a place to live this week after a slight chicken and egg problem. It seems that you can't get a place to live unless you have a bank account and you can't get a bank account without a place to live. I finally managed to find a nice place where the landlord understood the problem and agreed to rent to me. And with a place to live, presto! I also have a bank account. Now all I have to do is find a job... hopefully that little problem will be solved sometime soon this week. I got my fingers, eyes, legs and toes crossed.

Other than the above mentioned I haven't really given myself much time to do much sight seeing. I figured I'll have plenty of time to do that later on.

Dream job

Having recently given in my notice I'm on the hunt once again for another job. As luck would have it it seems that I may have found my dream job (pun intended). Apparently NASA are looking for people who are willing to stay in bed for them. In fact they are offering $17000 for you to stay in bed for 90 days! As demanding as that sounds I think I could manage that. I wonder what the qualifications for such a position would be. If "lazy bastard" and "not a morning person" are in the requirements section then I think the job is practically mine.... now where is that application form?

The end of an era

Today I handed in my notice. It was a sombre affair. The angels cried as I broke the news(well not really but it sounds good). Having stuck at the job for so long I was getting kinda institutionalised so its probably a good thing that I've decided to move on. I originally only planned to stay in the job for a year but then they offered me more money and I ended up staying a year and a half more than I originally intended.

As I gave the bad (or good news, depending on how you look at it), my boss turned around and said to me: "I thought something was up when I saw you in so early". Have things gotten so bad with my time keeping in work lately that I can't even come in early anymore without someone suspecting that I'm up to something?

So, from next month onwards I'm going to be an unemployed bum. I can't say that I'm going to miss the work but I know I'm going to miss the money ;) The big bad world with the big bad lions and vultures await me once again. The inevitable job hunting and the interview processes are going to be a huge pain in the ass. However, I'm not too pushed about getting another job until at least August so that should give me plenty of time to motivate and psyche myself into getting another job (and hopefully one that I'll actually like).

Thus beginneth the new grand adventures of the hat...

I h8 fckng txt spk!!!

As I was browsing the cinema listings in entertainment.ie to see what was out this week a review in the "your reviews" section caught my eye. It wasn't the fact that the review was profound or anything, it was more the fact that I thought entertainment.ie's page was faulty and was spewing out random symbols. Then I realised it was someone reviewing "Step Up 2" writing entirely in text speak. Given the movie in question being reviewed I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised.

In any case, I decided to click on the "more" link to see if I could decipher what the said individual had to say about the movie since I wasn't in the mood to do work and wanted a bit of a puzzle to solve to pass 5 minutes of my time. To my horror I find that the public reviews page is just a mass of text speaking reviews of said film.

It would seem that "kids" (I'm presuming that it's kids here even though I know I'm wrong on this occasion) these days are incapable of writing properly anymore. I wonder is this how they write when asked to write an essay in school/college? If so, does the teacher/lecturer just dismiss this little "phenomenon" or does he or she give them a deservedly big fat zero mark for not knowing how to write properly, never mind coherently. When these "kids" submit their CV for jobs I wonder is the majority of their CV written in text speak as well. Do they have things like "Nme : D8co d" and "Adrz: 4 me gaff"?

If this is a sign of how society is going I despair for society. These are the people who will one day (if not already) be running our country and services and more than likely have children (if not already) themselves. I'm not looking forward to the day when someone finally gets a book written all in text speak published because its now the accepted way to write.