don't forget

a plethora of passwords

Must I really have all these accounts? Twitter, Flitter, Facebook, Placebook, blogger, sprogger, hi5, low5, Xing, Ping, Spark, Shark and Fark? I made a few of those up but you get the jist. I have passwords falling out of my shoes. I have accounts in places I don't even know exist and now I can't access half of them because I've forgotten the passwords. A Russian person has been hacking my Twitter account for over a year and I don't know how to get in and close it down. What are they saying?

Some people say use the same passwords for everything. Now we're told that's the most unsafe thing you can do and to change our passwords regularly. I'm totally screwed either way. I can't even remember my own mobile phone number which I've had for nearly 10 years.


By the way I decided NOT to delete my Facebook account because something good turned up - can't remember what it was but it made me decide to give it another chance - so if you want to post something exceptionally exciting - do so forthwith - I'm still there (on Facebook that is - I'm certainly not "with it" in mind or body at the moment, but that's another story).

Facebook, schmacebook.....grrrrrr

I am so seriously thinking about wiping my account on Facebook.

Like an addict I look at it every day, more than once, scrolling hopefully down the status updates - looking for.... what? I don't know? What am I hoping to get out of Facebook? I think I've reached the limit of old friends I want to be back in touch with again, and all my family members with a computer are there as well. It's always nice to find new "real-time" friends on Facebook and make their acquaintance "virtually" but these are people I see every week anyway.

I think I'm always hoping someone will post something spectacular. Something that either uplifts and inspires me, or makes me laugh so hard I leave a puddle under my chair. Seeing old pictures was entertaining for a few minutes, until I realised that my old bosses, work colleagues, new business partners etc. could potentially also see me aged 14 holding a can of Special Brew at a dodgy 80's party, wearing an orange shirt buttoned up to the neck.

I blame Flight of the Conchords for raising my expectations too high - one of the first things I saw on a friend of a friends Facebook page, was a clip of them doing their Hip-hop-apotamus rap, and it floored me. It made me think that Facebook would provide me with a constant stream of ridiculous and hilarious entertainment. I have been misled.

Also - I seem to have accepted various friend request from people I don't actually know - whose posts are now clogging my status-update-box-bit (technical term) with utter rubbish. Yes I know I should delete them - but I fear they'll be offended and will then start 'mobbing' me, or 'dissing' me to their friends, who will then set up a "I hate Inselaffe" account and discredit me across the virtual landscape.......

Or not.

Anyway - I'm giving it a couple more weeks and if it doesn't turn up anything outstanding in that time I'm finished with it, defriending it forever, take that you massive social networking thing.....

More stuff like this please FB:

To stop yourself catching swine-flu, try walking around in a scuba suit, with a couple of oxygen tanks strapped to your shoulders. Otherwise the best way to stop it is to get it, take some pills and watch the telly until you don't have it anymore.
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/health/

A grey day today

Today it's grey and rainy. Not a day for doing anything outside - which is a shame because I've just decided I should write a "Good Spielplatz Guide" for Cologne, Düsseldorf and Bonn. Why? Because I seem to be spending half my life sitting in playgrounds these days.

I think I have a pretty good idea of what makes a good one and what makes a rubbish one. Of course the criteria will be entirely slummy mummy based such as: how close is the nearest kiosk/coffee facilities and/or beer garden, is there a loo nearby (for parents that is - kids can wee in bushes), will the playground "stuff" keep kids entirely absorbed and allow me to read a book? How dangerous is the playground, near to roads. Is there a bunch of drunks sitting in the corner, etc. etc.

I am of course an expert on Cologne, but Bonn and Düsseldorf will need a bit of research, so I'm going to have to find some spies to give me tips before I do a reccie day with the kids. Hopefully I'll  finish it before the kids decide Nintendo's are more fun than swinging and sliding.

Das ist Deutsch

I'm sitting here drinking some Dickmilch, eating a Dickmann, while looking at some Kunst on my laptop - you can only do that in public in Germany.

Look what I made!

This is not a "craft-ie" type blog - I'd love it to be but I am sadly too time prohibited to knock things up willy-nilly. I am however extremely craft addicted - my personal Internet porn is the Design-sponge website - I can spend hours sneaking peaks at other people's fabulously redisigned homes, or even better, the "Before and After" section where people turn nasty furniture into dazzling masterpieces of contemporary design. I've been so inspired by all this craftiness that I've stripped a chest of drawers and am waiting until I've got enough cash to give it a complete overhaul.

I got busy in the kitchen over Easter though. I'm no gourmet - lets make that clear from the start - I find cooking a chore at the moment because there's no chance of anyone saying "Wow - the flavour! The presentation! A delight to the pallette!" - instead it's "But I don't like mushrooms! Why did you put the sauce ON the pasta?" I do like baking though - always had a thing about desserts and cakes. So for Easter I made a Simnel cake and some lovely tartlets.

These were dead easy to make and well worth the fiddly pastry bit. The combination of creamy marscapone, cream and white chocolate, mixed with smoky chocolate pastry and tart raspberries, was really rather good.

The Simnel cake was total bollocks - easy to make - just chuck everything in a bowl and mix, then stick it in a cake tin - but the cake tasted rubbish.

A crafty project which turned out OK was a dolly bed set I made for a pram which surfaced in the Eifel house recently. The kids were using tea-towells as blankets and I thought Ronnie and Ruby (the girls dollies) could do with something a bit prettier. A few weeks and lots of sewing machine needles later, I knocked up this.... I was quite impressed as I have no previous history of being able to do anything with a sewing machine apart from break it.

Premiere

My first blog! I just wish I had more than a snatched five minutes to write something vaguely funny. The big one is running around in just knickers and the little one is following her around adoringly depite being nearly killed by an over loving strangulation attempt. I guess that'll have to do for now.