Being Julia

Saturday night we watched Being Julia . It was OK, had it's moments but only a 6/10 for me.

Mark spent Saturday with his friend Theo (who is moving back to Scotland this week) and Ryan.

Sunday morning we're looking after Mark's friend Chris and his brother Austin.

This week

A quiet week all around. Amy has been at camp and really enjoyed it, lots of tears when it ended. Mark has been enjoying the peace. Lots of layoffs at my work Friday (not me) so it was pretty sombre.

Watched The Upside of Anger on Friday night. It's a slow paced romance/drama with Kevin Costner. Pretty good, 7/10.

I wrote a new song this week. I've always had trouble coming up with anything catchy but this one came together well. All played and sung by me.

The character is not any aunties we might know and love.

Never Been In Love

Amy Sings

Amy's Song from camp.

A Quiet Day

Back to work for me. Amy started her day camp, it was 95f and she was outside all day but she really enjoyed it.

Nothing to report for the rest of us.

Charlie and The Chocolate Factory

Stella, Mark and Amy went to see Charlie and The Chocolate Factory. Amy and Mark gave it 10/10 saying it was REALLY funny. Stella said it made her laugh and gave it a 9/10.

While they were out I finished off two songs, attempting to sound like Johnny Cash and ending up sounding like myself failing to sound like Elvis (get it).

Beautiful and Hit Me Baby One More Time

The Notebook

Saturday we watched The Notebook a weepy but nice love story. It was pretty good. Stella liked it in that "it was sad" kind of way.

Saturday, Mark, his friend Lucy, Amy and Tony banged out noise on the piano, 2 guitars and a bass - everyone just playing randomly. However this was turned into the first cd from Chill Out - called The God Awful Noise, it will be available here soon.

White Noise

Watched the movie White Noise with Michael Keaton tonight, about dead people communicating through the static signals in TV's and radio's. It was a good idea and had some good moments but it went of in the wrong direction eventually. 6/10 White Noise

Rain

It rained on Thursday, that's the first time that I remember it ever raining in the summer since we got here.

Amy graduated her swimming class and has signed up for the next level. Mark spends all his time banging away on the guitar. Stella finished the new Harry Potter (and it upset her). I finished watching all the episodes of Entourage that I have (about half the season), it's a really funny show especially the character of Drama who plays a hot actors brother, who is not so successful. Part of the humor is that he's played by Kevin Dillon, who is Matt Dillon's less successful brother.

My cousin is off to Kenya

Sarah Dainty is off to Kenya on Sunday 24 if July to do some project work, climb Mt. Kenya and work in an Elephant Sanctuary.

Sounds like fun to me (except for the no TV and internet part).

Some outstanding mashups

I've been listening to a mashup podcast recently from MashupTown. Mashups are where someone merges two, usually totally different, songs together. Some particularly good ones' are.

GnR meets the Beatles
Kelly Clarkson fly's like an eagle
and the hilarious Eminem meets Lawrence Welk

Scooby Doo and The Mystery Painter

I saw a funny sticker on the car in front today. Here there are a lot of WWJD stickers (What Would Jesus Do), this one was WWSD, when you get closer you learn that it's - What Would Scooby Doo

Stayed up late last night (Monday) as usual, before going to bed I went around switching lights of, looking in on the children etc. Woke up this morning with paint all over my hands, and some on my arms - seems we might have a mystery late night painter.

Tony Butterworth Agilent Technologies
LSCA Order Fulfillment 5301 Stevens Creek Blvd
Voice 408-553-7673 Santa Clara, CA 95051
FAX 408-553-3952 Mail Stop 52U-MM
tony_butterworth@agilent.com
http://brs-hyper.scs.agilent.com/Brio/browse

Swimming and Doin' nothing

105 again today. Went to the Aquatic center, and stayed in, playing guitar, watching TV and playing PC games. Stella and Amy went to look after Potter the cat.

More Frosty

Watched the last Frost episode of season 6 - he figured it out again. More Inspector Linley tonight (no new US TV shows in the summer). Temperature has been over 100 every day this week.

Food and Swimming

Last night Stella and I watched Ep 3 Season 6 of Inspector Frost, guess what, Frost figured it all out again.

Today I took Mark to the swim center, then went to look at some guitars. Then we went to the new Italian in Gilroy. Spicy Chicken for me, BowTie Mix for Stella, Spicy Shrimp and Chicken for Mark and Macaroni Cheese for Amy. It was pretty good.

Tonight Mark and Amy are having a slumber party in Amy's room, eating popcorn and watching movies.

Friday July 15th

Nothing much to report again. Another day at work for me. Morgan Hill Aquatic Center for Stella, Mark and Amy.

Haircuts for Barkley and Timmy.

Friday at last

Nothing much to report again. Another day at work for me. Morgan Hill Aquatic Center for Stella, Mark and Amy.

Haircuts for Barkley and Timmy.

Nothing much to report

Nothing to report today. A normal day at work. Amy had swimming lessons and was learning to dive. Mark went out and bought some shirts and shorts - that's it.

The Fantastic Four

Stella and Mark went to see The Fantastic Four tonight. Mark gave it his usual "good" and 8/10. Stella scored it a 7. He liked the Human Torch best because he was funny

Read this book

I can't recommend too much the book Killing Bono by Neil McCormick. Probably the best and most interesting book I ever read.

Currently I've been watching Fahrenheit 9/11 over the course of a few nights. It's interesting but clearly biased, pretty interesting to hear what the soldiers think about it.

Stella and I have been watching Inspector Linley Mysteries on PBS. They are pretty good. We also just got the first 2 eps of Inspector Frost Season 6 which were as good as ever.

I watched the documentary DiG! about The Dandy Warhols & Brian Jonestown Massacre, it was really good. The Dandy's are not big here but it caused me to download their stuff and it's great.

Last Friday and Saturday we went to Paramount Great America http://pgathrills.com/ Mark's has started to go on the big roller coasters and someone (not me) is having to go with him.

Amy's started some swimming lessons this week at the Aquatic Center http://www.mhaquaticscenter.com/index.htm