Cow Economics

I just love this bit C found on the internets this weekend....

SOCIALISM
You have 2 cows.
You give one to your neighbour.

COMMUNISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and gives you some milk.

FASCISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and sells you some milk.

NAZISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and shoots you.

BUREAUCRATISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the milk
away…

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.
You sell them and retire on the income.

SURREALISM
You have two giraffes.
The government requires you to take harmonica lessons

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.
Later, you hire a consultant to analyse why the cow has dropped dead.

ENRON VENTURE CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of
credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity
swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with
a tax exemption for five cows.
The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a
Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the
rights to all seven cows back to your listed company.
The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one
more.
You sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States , leaving you
with nine cows.
No balance sheet provided with the release.
The public then buys your bull.

A FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike, organise a riot, and block the roads, because you want three
cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and
produce twenty times the milk.
You then create a clever cow cartoon image called ‘Cowkimon’ and market it
worldwide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk
themselves.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows, but you don’t know where they are.
You decide to have lunch.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
You count them again and learn you have 2 cows.
You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

A SWISS CORPORATION
You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you.
You charge the owners for storing them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have 300 people milking them.
You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity.
You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You worship them.

A BRITISH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Both are mad.

AN IRAQI CORPORATION
Everyone thinks you have lots of cows.
You tell them that you have none.
No-one believes you, so they bomb the **** out of you and invade your country.
You still have no cows, but at least now you are part of Democracy….

AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Business seems pretty good.
You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate.

A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION
You have two cows.
The one on the left looks very attractive.

Strange days

It really has been a strange few days, I dont even know where to start...

The horrid friday was all about work that I had on that I just couldnt seem to get done by the deadline since it was things that got changed on me and then crazy requests like try and get 6 pages of a A4 word document with text and tables onto ONE A3 power point presentation slide!! (I still cant figure that out). It was a seriously stressful day and I was trying to make it work out but when you also have to go thing like recreate excel documents it get time consuming.

Our electrical contractor was throwing us a Christmas party in a casino and all the girls going were going to get all dressed up in party dresses etc. So we had to get ready - the plan was to be ready by 6pm...now since i was working away on Miss Trendy's work I would have thought since she was getting ready too she would make a comment that she was off to get ready - but no she didnt seem to be talking to me. I finally realise that it is 5:55 and I'm not ready. I go through to find that the rest of the people are all waiting in reception all ready to go - fuck i was pissed off and the flippant comment "oh you still coming" Damn i was pissed off.

Anyway it did ruin the evening over all as it was loads of fun. We got the the casino and went through the whole sign in process and then were lead off to a private bar area where the free drinks began. We then were shown to the practice tables where they had a roulette, poker and blackjack table set up to teach us the games etc. This was great fun and I def learnt loads. Plus it is cool to practice with worthless chips. We were also served nibbly foods and more champayne and alcohol. We then got given £50 worth of real chips to go play with on the real tables.... scary !

I didnt do to badly as i chose the blackjack table which I was so good on at the practice that I won a poker set :) I didnt walk away with anything but the girl i was couching did - me thinks I was concetrating enough on my own cards.

I then stumbled home getting the very last northen line home (so lucky!) and crawled into an empty bed...No C until the sunday afternoon... he was off playing in Brighton.

I was rudely awoken by the alarm clock at 6am and i nearly threw it across the room and cursed C for not showing me how to turn it off. I finally get it to shut up and in the proccess apparently turned the 2nd alarm on that made it go off at 8:30. Damn now i was unhappy and hung over. managed to turn it off and turned over and went back to sleep only to wake up at 14:39!! OMG I've slept over 12 1/2 hours! crazy stuff.

So the rest of the weekend was nothing special and involved me not going very far from the warmth of home.

Monday bought with it work issues with me being bitched at by Miss trendy about the Friday stuff and getting a bit of a lecture - I'm not convinced it was all fair and neccessary but hey I have to move on and not get stressed about it. So I just carried on working as usual. It is now Wednesday and I've out worked her and am now waiting on her to get her workload sorted. ANYWAYS

Now for the strangest and saddest day... Terrible Tuesday.... Tuesday morning started off really weirdly with Miss quiet (my friends and neighbour at work) went away then came back picked up her bag, put on her coats and was walking out...I knew she wasnt planning to be out the office so looked up and one look I knew something was really wrong. She couldnt even talk just mouthed at me she would text me and then left.

I then find out that 6 people from the company have been made redundant which is 1 or 2 per dept! We were all in shock yesterday and didnt really know what to do with this information. And as everyone just up and left there were no good byes - it was very weird. But it also feels was to close to home. Miss quiet is brilliant and her job and def better then me on the drawing front. But they cut support staff so that is why she got cut out of the design dept. I already miss her!

This now means that since the design dept is smaller we are no having to move onto one bench...this means i'm back at the first desk i started off on here which has me with my back to the entire open plan office so they can all see what is on my 2 screens!! FUCK! so this means no more blogging at work, less email and who knows about chat.... Actually I dont know if I'll have to time to do anything as the workload that Miss quiet had will have to fall to someone so that means knock on effect is me having to do more random work. ARG

Now I hear that she or her husban ended up in a car accident last night. AND so did our design director (Posh Scot) What was the universe thinking yesterday!!!

The one funny thing that happened yesterday ...after wonderful talk with my dad (he is doing very well considering) I landed up missing a call from C and then having to run for the bus... I get on the bus, stap upstairs, sit down at the front and call C... Next thing I can hear his phone ringtone, and then not only do i hear him on the phone I hear him in the distance too...So I look up to the glass and there he is in the reflection in the window, sitting half way down the bus.... we had managed to unplanned get onto the same bus. What a wonderful surprise! :)

Horrible Friday

What a horrible horrible horrible horrible horrible horrible horrible horrible horrible horrible horrible horrible horrible horrible horrible horrible horrible horrible HORRIBLE friday!!!!
(I feel a little better after that)

Am now off to the Casino for some free gambling - I hope this makes up for the shit day and doesnt make the day shitter...

Wish me luck

Laptop Pimping

Lookie what i've done to my laptop ...isnt it pretty like :)
And an update: My dad is doing much better. He isnt on so much morphine so much more coherent. The operation he had is called an axial bi-femoral bypass. They have used the artery on the right side of his chest and done a softgel graft into the right leg. Then they have gone across his stomach area with another graft into the left leg. Apparently you can feel the softgel thing under his skin. He is bruised everywhere and in alot of pain. but his heart beat is very good and even though his lungs have taken a hit he is doing good. He should be out of ICU tonight or tomorrow. He is still a tough guy at 76 that is for sure.

Wedding gift

So i've been waiting awhile to do this post. Had to wait until I had actually given the couple my gift before posting it online.

So this is another of my ceramic pieces. It is a wedding vase - based on the tradional native vases. It is my architectual modern take on it.

Operation Monday

Sadly I have to report that there where more complications with my Dad. Due to his lifetime of smoking it has been discovered that he has plaque in his arteries which means that they are thinning and the blood is not getting through. This was causing no blood to get to his legs which caused his leg to become extremely painful and therefore this was all discovered. At this very moment he is now having parts of his arteries up near his heart replaced by fake ones. And all of this needs to be done by epidural again because of the years of smoking. It all makes me want to tell all the smokers out there that it isnt all about the cancer you could possibly get...it is definite that later in life all these complications are going to cause problem after problem.

Anyways..so sending out all the positive vibes I can this morning.

And I just have to say that I have the most wonderful and supportive and amazing bf that I really dont know what I would do without. He bring so much good into my life and I hope he know just how I love him and how happy he makes me. (sorry for all the soppiness babes)

He has just come out of surgery and it all seems ok - now we just see how the recovery goes.

Halloween Carpet Event

Last week Thursday night in honour of Halloween one of our carpet suppliers organised an event (as they do) and invited our design dept as some of the lucky few. It was a little different then the usual supplier/furniture event where you just stand around trying to get your hands on the food floating past while they have no problem providing copious amount of alcohol that just appears in your glass. This event included a Jack the Ripper walking tour! Now if you know me then you know that I could never say no to this!
About 7 of us headed down to the carpet showroom after work which they had done all out in Halloween stuff... included the very first carved pumpkin I've seen (it was seriously intricate!)This is where I discovered winter Pimms and i love it! It is basically heated up pimms cocktail and it was so divine as it was freezing outside! and we were soon to be head back out into the cold for the walking tour.
We were split into groups and ferried off to the start of the walk in the east end. The guides are beefeaters at the tower of London and this was their moonlighting gig which means that they were absolutely brilliant at giving tours as they do it all day long. We got a big burly barrel of a man with a booming voice - it was perfect. I also found out that the beefeaters and their families actually live on the grounds of the Tower of London - how insane must that be to have as your address!

For the next 2 hours we meandered around the east end getting told all the stories of each murder and being showed where each one took place. It was so detailed and sometimes it was hard to keep up with all the information. Luckily I knew quite a bit already. I did find out loads more though and just love all the useless pieces of information.

One of the best parts was the whole conspiracy theory around the Freemasons and the Prince of wales ...This is sort of how it all goes in a nutshell...

Firstly the way the bodies were placed references on of the main Freemasons stories
about how the architect of King Solomons buildings was a Jew (spelt Juw by only the Freemasons) and how once he was complete with the building he was given freedom BUT if he betrayed any of the secrets of the building and King Solomon he was be
killed in a very specific way (this is replayed in a ritual today by the Freemasons - the guides brother is one) and this is replicated in all but the last murder. The
last girl murdered was the only one murdered inside in her own apartment. She
was a redhead with green eyes and was a prostitute to Buckingham palace. She was also roman catholic.

The Prince had a thing for redheads with green eyes. She then left the
royal brothel before the murders started. They reckon that the Price got her pregnant and that would have been fine if she wasn't Catholic. It was over heard that the head of the city police (a Freemason) had said to the Prince that the prince's
troubles would be over before his birthday. The last murder happened 3 days
before his birthday.

It is thought that a down on his luck Freemason was paid to
kill her. The first murder had been to see if he had the guts to do it and the
2nd was a woman with red hair and green eyes and her uterus had been removed (to hide a pregnany)...mistaken identity perhaps. Then there was a break of 3 weeks before the last murders. So they had thought he had killed the right girl. 3 weeks
later the 3rd one was probably to test the waters again but he got disturbed
just as he had killed her...so he rampaged off and killed another girl just over
the boundary into the city police jurisdiction.

Then the police found an inscription in an alleyway near by written in chalk where they also found some of the blood stained dress of victim #4. This was an inscription that probably means only something to the Freemasons as it used the Freemasons spelling of the word Jews. The same head of police that was overheard saying the stuff to the Prince only got out of bed and came down to east london with the news of this and ordered it to be washed off immediatly but ignored the murders that night.

Finally the last murder was the most grusome since it was in her apartment he had all the time in the world to "destroy" the evidence. which he seriously did... here is the photograph that the City police took (they were the only police force with a camera)
...

Well that is basically it - written very badly! But I def like this theory to it. I think that all the freemason architecture and temples in this city also aid the love of a freemason conspiracy!

After the FREEZING 2 hours of walking around in heeled boots we got taken back to the showroom for those nibbley foods and lots of alcohol! Why on earth did I do this in heel I hear you say - well they are knee height boots...lets just say my feet and legs may have been sore but they werent too cold...the rest of me i'm not so sure about. And then seriously what is with sneaky cocktail pouring waiters that have to fill you glass up so many times that you loose count of how many drinks you had! It wasnt too bad and I toddled off home and was pleasantly surprised when I had no hangover on Friday!

Slipping and sliding...

So want to hear the STUPID thing that happened this morning?..

I walked out our gate turned onto the pavement and heel of shoe slipped and down I went. I was seriously taken by surprise. This is a first for me...I dont fall down much, i'm not clumsy and I have a great sense of balance. But this morning there was just no stopping me going down. It happened so fast ! I know that I realised that my heel was slipping but this does happen, but I never actually go down. I was walking and then I was lying on the ground! It was that fast. My hand did get out enough to stop me from really slamming into the pavement but now it is slightly grazed and my elbow is sore from the shock it took.

I obviously picked myself up just as fast ...shot a look around to see if anyone had seen it ...and just my luck yes there was the cleaner that had finally cleaned all the slippery mulshy leave up (yet I did come asunder on those?!?!)

Now here is the kicker of the story... He decided that he had to tell me that I was wearing the wrong shoes! and proceded to LECTURE me on this fact ! I tried to walk past quickly and get away from the scene but to no avail - he was now following me!! So what could i do but stop and listen to his lecture since he was not going to be put off.

Street cleaner: Those are the wrong shoes. You shouldnt be wearing those heels!

Me: I have to for work, I work in the city and it is very corporate (while walking past as carefully and as quickly as possible)

SC: (running after me) Well then you should be wearing shoes like these (pointing at his leather construction steel toed boots with hiking type soles) and change them at work into those high heels.

Me: But this is the first time it has happened to me

SC: If it had been below zero last night you could have broken something now when you fell and then you would be off work for months. Its not worth it.

Finally I admit that i'm not used to the weather and the semantics of the shoes versus the pavement as I was from South Africa... That seemed to explain it all and he just went "Ahhhhh" and went back to his work.

How embarassing !!