Happy Happy Birthday Steve

Happy happy Birthday Steve
Originally uploaded by dina the mundane and oblivious.

Love you lots and lots sweetie, have a great day!
Smooches!
(For some reason, Ben cries every time we sing happy birthday - he must be upset that daddy's getting old.)

Get out your boogie shoes-and wallets

They're selling John Travolta's famous floor! I defy you not to hum a Bee Gees tune right now.

Jack!

A big congrats to Lisa and Paul and Jasper on the birth of the newest Durbin, Jack!
All the best for a speedy recovery Lisa!

4!

Today my blog is four years old! Four years ago, I was working at a fairly crappy job, single-but dating a great guy, and living alone. Today, my job is a bit better, I am married and have a beautiful son, and my house is almost never silent or tidy. I think that I'm doing ok:-)

Dina

Literal meaning
"Oh well, we can always try again."

History
Coming to an apprentice shoemaker in a dream under the Marquis of Bute, the name dina was originally used largely to refer to a breed of goose, before being transported to Australia for its part in the "Christ, we're starving to death! - how about a bit of food; just if you can spare it, obviously, we don't want to put you out" Rebellion.

Famous dinas
1. dina de Sponetote, who lost a fortune on unspeakable guilt;
2. "Terrible" dina Happenstance, belittler of a musical quiz show based on the Nanjing Massacre;
3. dina Boonk ("The Nervous"), disgusted by Paul McCartney's Wings;
4. dina Q Nightdodge, exposed in the press as having swapped a child for those funny pirate hats; first holder of the office of Emeritus Professor of Prophecy Professing, Oxford;
5. Judge dina Tinkermouse-Marl, director of the new Bond movie, SHOOT FIRST, SHOOT LATER;
6. dina Dindymene-Thews, who owes everything to several of the more violent gypsy curses;
7. dina O'Sprokes-Sprewt, named in court as holding compromising material concerning static electricity; ghost-writer of Anita Ekberg's revolutionary, hologram autobiography, IS THAT ME? NO, THIS IS ME;
8. dina S'Ess ("The Celebrated Juggler"), once saved by the deckchair-cum-hat;
9. dina de la Nootlooter ("The Reasonably Broadly Educated"), proponent of the Formidable Coat; ghost-writer of The St Winifred's School Choir's deeply upsetting autobiography, REMINISCING FROM MY DEATHBED;
10. dina Millington, champion of the right to use the world's most attractive bucket.

Typical dina motto
"You can't win 'em all, or people will get suspicious."

Name Meaning Generator

Made my day

I got a bit of gratuitous pleasure yesterday morning. On my morning drive to work, a guy actually tried flirting with me in traffic. What's more, the guy was in his twenties. He was in a work van too!
Now, I'm not the kind of girl that this happens to every day. When I was younger I'd get the occasional wandering eye, but now, this never happens. It took a minute to figure out what was going on. At first I thought that something was wrong with my car or maybe that someone wrote something rude on my roof (I do live next door to a private highschool). After I figured it out (I really am a dope), I tried very hard not to look at him or play with my hair or attempt a cute smile. Being the suave, sophisticated lady I am, I almost ran a light and slammed on my brakes causing my purse to topple, spewing the contents on the passenger floor - smooooooth. That guy really knows how to pick 'em. Perhaps he's just into spazzy old ladies who can't drive.

New service

Try this screen cleaner! (via Kittenhead)

Keep your stick off the ice

Be very, very quiet about this, but I don't miss NHL hockey one bit. I realise that it's uncanadian, but I don't really like hockey. Since the lockout started, there's no hockey on tv, news, or around the water cooler and I am loving it. All over Canada, people are going to junior games and enjoying women's hockey, hockey without fighting and blood and people being handicapped for life (if you don't count the parents in the stands). CBC, one of the few tv stations I get with my rabbit ears, has shown movies and some new shows, some of which are quite good. I hate Don Cherry and his stupid opinions and watching the cup playoffs in June? July? Do you think that there's any chance that everyone will stop caring about pro hockey and they'll cancel it completely? Shhhhhh, I didn't say that.

Bad English

In general, I find the state of most written communication I receive in English to be pretty sad. Emails, formal letters from companies, newspaper articles, and advertisements are littered with typos, bad grammar, and misused words. I guess it's one of those things that you come to expect when you live in a province where English is considered an annoyance, and I've become used to it, so when I come across something that's well written in English, it's always a bit surprising. A while back, a letter came in my Publi-sac (little plastic bags of advertisements that show up every Saturday). It was just a short letter defending the practice of sending sale flyers, but it was virtually error-free. It seemed so bizarre that I wanted to keep the letter and show it to all the big companies that send me bad English every day and ask, "if the Publi-sac people can do this, what's your problem?".