Obama Mania

It's a sunny but cold Sunday afternoon, the traffic is light, the seat warmer is on, the tunes are pumping... and there is a wave on the side of the road. Obama is waving at us from the side of the road with a goofy grin.

We stared incredulously at President Obama, well, the picture of him plastered on the outside of a box. The box was worn by some guy, it was big enough to cover him from head to knee, and even went as far as having a side window where a comical, over sized red glove is extended out in a enthusiastic wave.

We were so distracted with the Obama set-up, we didn't even catch what advert President Obama was being exploited over. The Marketing department was in despareate need for fresh inspiration.

Before we could give it another thought, 200 meters down the road, there was Obama again... grinning and waving enthusiastically. This time we took a better look... the box, was actually shaped like a cardboard house with a red roof, and Obama is pictured in front of the house pointing us to the right. A third Obama had to wave us down before we realized, that President Obama was waving us towards some Open Houses off the main road. If I wasn't already in the market for some real estate, I am now. No, not really.

This is not the first we've seen of Obama Mania, but from T-shirts and bumper stickers, it's been raised to brand new heights.

And I thought the dude who is opening a Cafe Obama needed help...


It's great to see that people have renewed hope. That for once, they have faith.

But this exploitation has gone way overboard. Every night, the White House will always hold a good few minutes of coverage on E! News, on Entertainment Tonight, on Access Hollywood... after the breaking news of another Hollywood starlet with weight issues, or before the ground breaking news flash of yet another split-up in Tinseltown.

I really hope that Obama's name will upstage the tacky signage of Obama Cafe, and the Obama coffee imported from Kenya will live up to the promise.

An early morning message

I've been pretty good this year with my weather whines... but this was the news I woke up to this morning...

This could be the year we have the heaviest snowfall in 70 years. And we're not even half way through winter yet - I still have the worse month of Feb to look forward to. It was a great incentive to spring out of bed!

And whats with the 40 degree weather back at home?? Not sure if I envy you or not...

Sand without the beach

"You need to step outside... every time you open your mouth, the price goes up"
Gotta love mi-wei-sik-chu for her honesty. I can ask her anything at all, and she would give a straight answer. Never mind the fact that I considered leaving her in the Moroccan souk after a comment like that... she may have the art of bargaining, but she also needed my sense of direction to get her out of the maze of never ending stores and alleyways:


Good thing I didn't leave her behind. She was my toilet paper dispenser, my drug store, supply of pastries and my mother away from home... when we got back to London, she was my nurse, cooked me soup and bought congee at 2am so I can have it for breakfast. She was worth skipping out on sunny Mexico to go to bloody cold London and Morocco.

An added bonus to this trip was that reen-ee decided to join us before we left!

Morocco was every bit as colorful as I had imagined. A guesthouse Riad Jona was true to gorgeous pictures on it's website. We met some really great people, people who offered us mint tea, cookies on the street, students studying English who offered to take us around... but there was many others who tried to rip us off.. cab drivers, shop owners, and
even random people off the street. It was a shame, but we sported a defensive attitude, and was often rude, just to get them off our backs.

Moroccans are also fascinated with Asians, we couldn't walk anywhere without being hassled with "Konnichiwa"... "Japanese? Chinese?"...

It was extremely annoying, but I guess Moroccans are so rooted in their culture, regardless of how they were brought up. Their background is such an important part of their lives that naturally they are intrigued with our backgrounds.

I was asked who I would represent in the Olympics if I had to choose between China, my heritage and 'where I am truly from', or Australia which they described as simply 'where I live'. There is no doubt who I would choose the represent, yet to them, not fighting for your roots is a foreign a concept, as foreign as I am to them.

The highlight of the trip was definitely the Sahara desert. The places of interest on the way there was nothing compared to the destination itself. To be riding a camel and watching the sunrise in one of the greatest natural beauties of the world is awe striking. Sharing a tent with 12 others (including four snorers), sleeping under blankets used to cushion our butt on the camels back, and peeing under the stars was less inspiring, but worth the cause:


And the best of the rest? Being able to meet with sorely missed coffee and shopping buddies in an exotic country. I can't think of better travel buddies to pee under the stars in the Sahara desert with.

Happy Holidays!

I have been too lazy to send out Christmas cards this year (like most years). In my old age, I do get sentimental, and my laziness does not speak for how much I miss my families - both real a pretend, and my friends that are scattered in all corners of the globe.

I'm just grateful that these days, our distance is less noticeable through email, Skype, Facebook and ease of hopping on a plane. This year I've been able to spend precious time with loved ones in Canada, U.S, Sweden and Australia. Sadly, the truth is, the time I spend with an old friend during a quick trip, may very well be only a little less than if we were living in the same city. I guess being apart makes you take less for granted.

To the few people that read this blog, where ever you are in the world, I wish you a very happy holiday season! And for the New Year - may there be many happy travels to Canada (Toronto specifically), because it is about time you come and spend some quality time with family and friend!

xoxo A

The weekend of eating, drinking, driving and being Madonna

The excitement of the week was not my birthday, not X'mas parties, and definitely not the snow.

I got my first Canadian credit card! Big deal you think. It is a big deal. I have been complaining for over a year about how backward and inefficient the banks are here, and how stupid they were giving loans to people who can't pay but not giving a credit card to someone who can! I have been charge ridiculous transaction fees for over-using Internet and ATM banking. And I am fed up having to carry cash with me everywhere I go. Thank god for Amex Global Transfer, and bless WendyBendy for alerting me to this programme.

In other news, I have had a fabulous birthday weekend. No patio drinking at waterside bar, but the next best thing. My old team at work took me out to dinner at Peridot, and G took me out to Madeline's… both scrumptious meals that reminded me of the fine dining days back when. These days, it is more comfort cheep and cheerful which suits me fine, but it is nice to indulge once in a while.

My girls here had our annual themed X'mas party… Madonna was definitely in the house! Everyone made an entrance with their Madonna outfit and corresponding song, bearing a kris kringle that 'Madonna would like'. Besides a few moles on the wrong side of the face, it was the best bunch of Asian Madonna's I've seen!

 

(bad photo of me being a few drink shades too pink, and this is as much of the costumes the girls will let me post)

A lot less exciting but worth a celebration nonetheless, was the fact that I finally sat my road test for a licence here. I'd be pretty peeved if I didn't pass the test, but given that it was the first time I have ever driven in a snow squall, the Pass came more as a relief than expectation. This is just for a normal car licence. I still need to sit all my motorcycle tests next year once the snow season is over!

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

We went took a roadtrip to Pittsburgh about a month ago, mostly so I can practice my driving so that I can sit a road test here, and also to check out the town where G spent five years of his life during university. We booked a hotel on a strip that G described as having a lot of shops and restaurants, immediately, I thought it would be like the strip stores in our neighbourhood, or Oxford St back at home. The stores and restaurants G were referring to were Target, Walmart, McDonalds, The Keg, Red Lobster, Dennys and any other American franchaise imaginable. It was more like industrial area Alexandria than it was Oxford. It was difficult to have any doubts where we were, because everywhere you looked, everyone you spoke to, everything you ate was quintissential American fare.

First stop was G's uni… he went to a small university called Duquesne. Much smaller than UNSW, it was actually quaint, with a small community feel. We passed a inter-university football game which was pretty cool coz I've never seen one before. G got all excited about being able to buy new logo tees and sports gear. I don't know anyone who has ever forked out good money to advertise UNSW on their chest!

Downtown Pittsburgh would have been much nicer had it not been pouring rain. Although we saw the entire downtown in a couple of hours, it was much nicer than I had aniticpated. The mixture of old and new architecture was a surprise from the industrial slab buildings I was expecting, but I can understand why G couldn’t' wait to get out of there.

Highlight was a Primanti Brothers sandwich… pastrami (grilled with a hot iron), fries, mayonnaise, relish, coleslaw, provolone cheese all whacked into a rye bread. It was huuge.

 

For dinner, I demanded Olive Garden, another American-Italian franchaise, which I remembered had really good garlic sticks and soup. The garlic sticks and any soup off the menu come complimentary with your main. Better still, it's refillable - as many times as you wish, as with the beverages! No wonder Americans are the size they are! (Another factor why you would not doubt where you are).

Coz there was absolutely nothing to do at night (besides shopping at Target), we decided to see the Bond flick at the local cinemas. Another highlight. The cinemas were so true to what we know from any 80's movies we've seen. One storey building in the middle of a flat carpark parked with very large GMs and Chryslers. The signboard for the movie times was retro black lettering, individually pinned onto a white back board. The candy counter was brightly colored and manned by a teen in a diner uniform. The cinema seating was low back, bright green vinyl, that must have been there since the 70's. It was most surreal.

On the way home, we stopped at the outlets, and I must say, I was very proud of myself. My only purchase was a gift and some socks even though there was crazy sales that I would normally regard as too good to miss.

So I'm all set for my drive test, this weekend. Ofcourse, it's going to be snowing - the only questions I had wrong on the knowledge test was snow related, so this should be interesting!

Anticipating Unemployment

For sensible people, when faced with less than a month left of secure employment, and a roller coaster economy that is yet to feel the incline, they would play it safe.

I have a friend who works in mortgages, who is very successful, and to our friends amusement, quite aggressive in climbing the corporate ladder. A little stressed with the state of the economy, she decided to return a sweater she had purchased, one of many spending changes she's made.

Meanwhile, whether frivolous or foolish, I am shopping for holiday destinations to spend my new found time. So earlier in the week, a conversation on Skype was enough to convince me to book flights to meet a friend on the other side of the ocean, and travel to a country I know barely anything about.

Today, whilst G and I were chilling out at a local cafe, we come across an ad for a sale on Vespas. We've been thinking about it for a while, but with winter coming on so quickly, we dawdled on the idea. But the $2k discount was too good to miss. So we did another impulsive thing and bought one. Mind you, neither G or I have a license to drive our new purchase, and we probably won't get an opportunity to practice and ride until April next year, but who can resist a sale?!

We chose the color coz without electricity in the garage, this will help brighten things a bit:


Okaes, so only this color was available at our price, but we can work yellow methinks.

To my dear siblings, the 'rents don't really need to know about this, k?

Whats for lunch?

This morning, I decided to run into the grocery store to get some provisions for work - flurries yesterday at lunch is enough to prevent me walking down the road for food.

Plus, with 99c frozen meals, it's cheaper than a bag of chips!

So here I am, gym bag on one shoulder, handbag on the arm, and hot tea in hand. I forgot the basket, but figured 'what's a couple of boxes of frozen pasta'?. That was until the pasta fell on me. Yup, one minute I'm expertly juggling my bags and my tea, and the next minute it was raining pasta, and what was in the freezer is now on the floor (ok, little exaggeration, maybe not the entire freezer, but enough to make a scene).

If I didn't feel stupid enough, I must have looked it... frail little granny ran over the help me.

Take heed, frozen meals can kill you.

The conversation

... resulted in a polite decline.

The last time I declined an offer and quit, I was in tears. I remember it being a very emotional experience. Having said that I had great managers who had really shaped and support my growth and offered me opportunities which were a shame to refuse.

This time round, when asked whether it felt like a huge lift of my chest, I gave a shrug. I knew all along I wasn't going to stick with it. But I'm glad I forced myself to think it through and consider it, rather than use my emotions to decide.

My only regret is that I have three trips planned to U.S. outlet malls over the next 3 months, and I'm going to have to watch the spending.

On the flip side, now that it's done and dusted, I need to decide where to go in January! I'm thinking Florida / Central America, Morocco or somewhere else in Africa. Anyone free to join me??

Resorting to a list

With all the venting I have done on this blog and to my friends, I don't think it is a revelation to say that I don't enjoy my current contract. So being offered a permanent position, should really be a no brainer, except that the current market conditions suck.

I have been subtley trying to convince some of my London friends to make the move over to T.O. as I didn't think the job market was suffering as badly. But reality has hit as I monitor the job sites everyday - only a few jobs make it through my loose search criteria, and I will be lucky if one of them remotely resembles my type of work, let alone interest me. So when a permanent offer at my current contract is placed on my table, what do I do? I have less than a day before I have to express my interest, and the responsible, logical side of me warns me not to be so frivolous in giving an answer.

Pros
* Stability (not sure when this has mattered to be before, but I think it is an adult consideration and I'm trying to make an adult decision)
* Better leverage in my Permanent Residency application (which I have not decided to pursue or not)
* More say in what I do as a permanent staff (I think, and within boundaries)
* Easy to excel in this environment (at a cost, see below)
* Employment means earning money to travel

Cons
* I have not enjoyed the project in the last year, what makes me think it will change?
* The people on the project do not inspire me
* Lack of challenge. My learning curve is not very curvy at all
* Risk of being stuck in Telco if I don't run away now
* Commuting out to woop woop - which means car pooling or car shopping, and less sleep
* Huge pay cut, and no billing for over time
* Cut any leads of getting contract work through another Consultant on the project (conflict of interest for them to poach permanent staff)
* Full time work means only 3 weeks to travel per year
* Unemployment means I get to travel and escape winter (this is really a pro for me, but a con against taking the job)

It was actually helpful for me to write this down - I have more Pros than I thought! Although I'm not surprised I still have more Cons. If I'm as geeky as some of my friends, I would weigh each of my points and graph it! LOL

At the end of the day, it really boils down to how much risk am I willing to take in order to get a more satisfying job?

Like my usual non-commital-till-the-last-minute self, I'll leave it till tomorrow.

Sassy Circus Sideshow

As we all know from the movies, Halloween is no casual affair in North America. Not when you are walking down the street past tombstones on the lawn of a lovely home, across the street you see a ghost of a bed sheet, and down the road a fine looking set of skeletons are sun baking.

Out here, they grown a special breed of pumpkins that have no other purpose than to serve as decoration for Halloween! Bright orange, perfectly round pumpkins are cultivated and sold by the truckloads in the months leading to Halloween to sit on people doorsteps... apparently they aren't for eating!

Although excited about experiencing a real Halloween, I was less enthused with having to hand out candy every 2 minutes the doorbell rang. So G and I took the cheats way out and decided to go out for dinner and leave the poor kids disappointed on the only non-pumpkin lined doorsteps in the neighborhood. Somehow, our dinner plans ended up at G's parents place, for which they were unusually pleased to see us. Halloween virgins you see, have the privilege of answering the door bell, and G's family were happy to oblige.

Halloween is the day that you don't even flinch when you are sitting on the subway next to Joker, or across the aisle from a poor woman who had been slashed with a machete. The party organizer in the crew threw a house party with a less macabre theme of Sassy Circus Sideshow - we had fortune tellers, lions and lion tamers, magicians, chicks dressed in very little clothing... and then there were ugly Siamese twins who crossed path with Hannibal Lecter. Let me tell you, being bound to someone might be amusing for the first five minutes, but gets a little testy any longer than that. Here's a few pics of the evening...

 

One of those days

I woke up this morning and our lawn was speckled with snow... wet, ugly, unwelcomed snow. I have been in denial of late, even when the mercury dropped, my hats, gloves and thick winter jackets have stayed in storage. It is October after all. In defeat, they all came out today, every last bit of winter.

Yesterday I was literally in tears I was so bored. I sat at my computer in my little cubicle, absent-mindedly refreshing my Google page because I had nothing to type into Google Search... the page refreshes, and nope, no inspiration in the last second that can fill that dang search box.

I went home at 3pm. Couldn't stand it no more. It was Pub Night for the project too, but a beer and nibbles did not warrant staying another two hours. For a contractor, it's like leaving a wad of cash on the table and walking away, but saving my sanity was priceless.

This morning, after my somewhat dissappointing start, I rock up to work at 9.30pm and I have an email. What sh*ts me more than not having work, is to receive an email for a task that takes the originator the same amount of time to complete themselves as it does for them to document the task in an email for me. I got asked to sort a spreadsheet and split it into four separate files and then send them back. It's an insult to any intelligence I have. I'm not sure whether he was feeling sorry for me an decided to throw me a bite, or whether he was being a dick and felt that sorting a spreadsheet was beyond him. Whatever the case, I've thrown work ethics out the door (onto the snow covered lawn) and I'm making Workopolis the homepage on my work PC.

Lost for words... well suitable words anyway...

It's time to revamp my resume again. My contract will unlikely be extended at the end of the year. Regardless, I have been whining about my job for some time to warrant getting off my comfortable butt to find another job.

The thing is, I now have to create room on my already borderline-unacceptably-long resume of three pages, for my latest experience. If finding white paper isn't a challenge in itself, I also have to fill this newly created space with the skills I have used and gained in the nine months.

How do you phrase nicely, that three months out of nine was sitting pretty doing absolutely nothing except web surfing and holiday planning. The most valuable skill gained was standing my ground and being heard amongst a team of overpowering analysts. My strength is my flexibility in working on constantly changing directions, if any was given at all. And the biggest challenge I overcame was throwing my values, standards and work ethics out the window when working with people who "don't give a sh*t" and just want to "get it done".

Yes, I think it is time for a change. Pity that change means filling the gap in my resume!

In search of fall

I've been in and out of Canada frequently in the last five years, and not once have I experienced a Canadian fall. This is my first year here for fall, and I was adamant to see the famous colours and jump in a pile of maple leaves.
Can you believe they have a Colour Report that is issues weekly, reporting on the percentage change in colours for each popular region in the province???

We took a road trip up north which was a nice break away from the city. I must admit, I was a little disappointed with the colours, they weren't as concentrated and magnificent as I had imagined, but that's just me with high expectations and high likelihood of disappointment. We did see some fantastic colours of scarlett red, burnt orange and bright yellow, but we found it more breathtaking seeing it from the road, rather than being in the Provincial Parks or lookouts themselves. Maybe it was just because I couldn't find a nice pile of leaves to jump in. I'll get over it.

We had a lovely drive nevertheless, I tasted elk for the first time in pot pie, passed a pumpkin patch (it looked really cool, all the Halloween pumpkins scattered over the field - wish I had a photo!), met a chipmunk and got to enjoy the last weekend of decent weather (yesterday was the first day of snow, north of the city!)

Below are some of my fave photos from the weekend:

 


 

Thanksgiving

With one American Thanksgiving up my sleeve (where I gave thanks to great sales, and great friends who were dragged around the outlet mall when sane people are in bed), my very first Canadian Thanksgiving was another sort of mad rush.

My mission was to roast a turkey, plus a three-course dinner. To add to the stress of never having cooked turkey, we invited Gord's parents over to taste my potentially screwed up Thanksgiving dinner.

I thought the hard part was cleaning and stuffing the bird, but boy was a I wrong. My turkey was baking without a hitch at 450F for half an hour before I bring it down to 350F. An ofcourse, the oven starts playing up. It won't let me press "3", "4" or "5" buttons to set the temperature! Thank god we have a second oven upstairs in our second kitchen (as you do), so we carry the bird upstairs, whacked it in the spare oven, and voila, the oven door doesn't close. The bird gets run downstairs again, we play with buttons a bit more, and finally we resort to cooking at 299F because the "2" and the "9" button was working fine (go figure). It took a bit longer to cook, and it didn't help that the bird was laid to rest breast down and needed to be flipped halfway through roasting, but it got there in the end.

Infact, it was branded the "best turkey of the season". Roasting the turkey on slow cook actually did the turkey favours… it's common for turkeys to get overcooked and dry, which is why some people brine it, or inject butter. My little Butterball overcame all that and came out nice a juicy! Although it was ready just after the main, the four of us did a good job digging into our second dinner, there weren't as much leftovers as anticipated. I once thought using the drippings to make gravy was gross, but my god it is tasty!

So here are a few pics of the star of the show...

... I mean the one hanging by the wings...


... fresh out of the dysfunctional oven


... did I say this was our second dinner?


.. and to top it off, a traditional pumpkin pie, which was surprisingly good.

Nuit Blanche

One thing about T.O. is that they love festivals. They'll close major streets down for a good party.

A much anticipated festival that I have been hearing about all year is Nuit Blanche. Dubbed as a "free all night contemporary art thing", downtown T.O. is transformed into an open air art gallery from 6pm until sunrise. Walks of all sorts come out and roam the streets, some get all dressed up like it's halloween, and others grow beards in honour of the event(namely, G and co). I had little success with my beard.

We saw a few installions, but Nuit Blanche really ended up being Nuit Bar. After each installation, we'd hop into a bar for a quick drink. It added to the charm of the art pieces. The installations were unique, but would have been more enjoyable if we had read up on the inspirations, and not have to fight a throng of enthusiasts at 2am in the morning. We ended up seeing four or five installations - out of 155, didn't even scratch the surface, but a good taster nevertheless.

Cafe de Millwood

If you haven't heard me say it a million times before, then let it be known, the coffee in North America sucks.

To prove my point, on Saturday night when I was waiting for a friend outside a Starbucks that had a line-up out the door. A girl in the line contemplated taking a gamble for a shorter wait at Second Cup across the road (which may be likened to Gloria Jeans) but was quickly discouraged by her friend with the explanation that Second Cup "lacked the prestige of Starbucks". I refrained from tapping them on the shoulder and telling them what Starbucks lacks.

In a city overladen with American franchises, G and I have been trying to hunt down a decent flat white and latte. So far, we have only found one cafe that can rival the coffees we've had recently in Sweden and Sydney. So we've decided to make a stop to this with a new purchase:



We haven't perfected it, but we're getting there. Our amateur coffees aren't too bad, but we're working on the perfect microfoam. The new purchase has also inspired me to transform an unused corner of the house into a coffee room where we can curl up with a book, and keep our travel books and photos.

Now, if only I can wake up early enough to put make-up on, let alone make a latte!

Back and bored

So after a whirlwind trip back to Sydney, I'm back at work and almost survived a whole week.

I'm meant to be changing roles and moving to a new function… that was meant to have happened during my month's absence so I can return and slide into a new and exciting job (well not so exciting, but something different nevertheless).

In the last month, not only hasn't my role changed, but the bad management and planning on this project hasn't either.

Not sure how ethical it is to use my paid contractor hours to search for a new job, but once I wake up from my post-holiday-blues, I should really start. I need something that stimulates me, rather than just execute on things that don't add value or don't make sense, and get frustrated that no-one cares except the contractors that know what their doing but don't get a say.

For the last week, I have done a maximum of 3 hours worth of work, but accomplished a great deal of other things such as:
- replied all my emails (dating back a year)
- sorted my photos
- compared turkey recipes for my first Canadian Thanksgiving
- sorted my banking
- shopped for an espresso machine
- studied for my drivers license test
- caught up with world news
- researched my next holiday (this was started the day after I got back!)
- researched and download my PR application kit (no I haven't decided to stay 'for good', I've downloaded it to win an argument with a friend, but if I am kept as bored as I am now, I will probably fill it out next week!)

I've gotten to the stage that I have ran out of things to surf for on the web! Not even shopping amuses me since I have nothing to shop for!
Hmm... perhaps a missed episode of Greys Anatomy in my little cubicle...

Potatoes and Meatballs

It's true, Stockholm really is the most beautiful city in the world. As G puts it - "One in four girls are 'smokin' hot", and the guys are quite pretty too. I must agree with him... it was like we were surrounded by Ralph Lauren models all day!

Besides going to Sweden to people watch, we were there for Steph & Karls wedding which was held in tradition Swedish style - everything was so simple, yet very charming and thoughtful.

The wedding was in a small town and towards the end of our trip. We went from Stockholm, to Gothenberg and then the Boras... to tourists like us, these places where miniatures of the place before, so by the time we got to Boras, our expectations were that we spend half day around the town, and just chill in the hotel the rest until the wedding the next day. Not only was G surprised that Boras was a valid town (I mustn't have set very high expectations), he realized his childhood fave band was playing live the night we arrived! The sleepy town was crazy and buzzing with people, all coming in to see the Jamaican group Bony M - I bit before my time, but that didn't stop me partying in the square where they were playing live.

The rest of Sweden was nice, but I have to admit, the excitement and beauty of Stockholm was dampened by the weather (literally!). It rained every_single_day. Although we didn't do as much outdoors activities and take as many photos as planned, we still had a great time. Canada isn't very big on cafe culture, so we took advantage of the cosy cafes, and divine coffee that Sweden had to offer.



During sales time, Sweden is a shoppers heaven. Sales signs with 50-70% off were very common. Unfortunately I was traveling with the world's worse shopper - although we hunted around for nifty Scandinavian design stores, the temptation of clothes shopping was definitely a test on my will power. The one store that did catch G's eyes was one called Design Torget. We went into everyone single Design Torget we came across in both Stockholm and Gothenberg, 6 times on last count. We hardly even went into 6 clothes stores the whole time!

Speaking of clothes, Sweden appears to have a very strong street culture - with current trend being the bush-ranger neck scarf, long cardi and skinny jeans - for both men and women. Not only are the boys as pretty as the girls, dress sense for the two sexes seem pretty aligned also.

We're back home now, and I have two more weeks before Sydney! I'm making a list of things I want to eat. So get your stomachs prepared!

Btw, photos uploaded - see side link.

Words in writing

When you are writing a bitchy email about a colleague at work (you guessed it, the PM!), to another colleague in the next cubicle that you share bitchy stories with - never, and I repeat never think about the subject so much that you accidentally put their name in the "To" field.

You can feel bad when they reply the guilty email, but let's be clear, you only feel bad because you were caught, not because writing snarky emails is terrible school girly thing.

The worse is making nice after the fact.
Thank god for cubicles with high walls.