Luck of the draw

I got out of the bath on Friday and guess what? I hurt my back. Such a simple thing that resulted in a lot of pain. My wife wanted to grab  a Chinese specialist  and get him to manipulate my back there and then. I just elected to send her for the pain relief spray from the pharmacist. Its 3quid or 4.5dollars and stinks to high heaven, like a mens locker room. I knew after a few days of pain and stiffness I'dbe better again. Its Tuesday now and I'm still a bit stiff though I can move fast, I had to as I burnt my toast, because I left it while I was on the computer.

 My biggest daughter will be singing in the songs from Oliver on the last day of the school term so my back is good enough to attend. I didn't leave the  house for a few days as I moved like a 900 year old man, or a baby with a full nappy, you can pick your favourite metaphor.   As I speak the wife has just parked outside so our kids will tell me what they have been up  to. As for me I stumbled over a new Internet radio service so I've thrown my hat into the ring for that. It could be  lots of fun and a good experience If I get past the 100s of much younger people who throw their hats into the ring. I also stumbled over a couple of nice regular jobs so I've sent my CV  off for those.

I also got a Christmas card off my last uncle, when I was a kid I had uncles galore, like apples on a tree, aunties too. Now he is the last one, the very last one. You know when you are the older generation when you only have one last uncle. I still feel 20, its the birth certificate thats old, a bit Dorien Grey, but I do have a young wife and small children SO that DOES make me young, as for my white hair, thats a sign of wisdom, and who am I to disagree with my mum. As I talk my girls are comparing how many Xmas cards they've got, the designs and everything, my oldest is jealous because the smallest got the most cards. All  the display space in the house is gone now. Next year I'll have to put a string up to display them all. http://www.media-kube.com is the internet radio I've applied for, if you click on music you can hear a sample, I've dipped in while talking to you all, its kind of chilling IF thats the right term, I do have very catholic tastes so that'll all today, and before I forget a Very Merry Christmas to One and All, where ever you are, and you are all over the world judging the stats. Michael

 

Shanghai File Sharing in China

I was reading  in the Daily Telegraph about file File Sharing in China and I have tripped over Osun.org so I  wondered  what would happen if I put Shanghai File Sharing in China as a blog title and with it in the body of text. You see one piece keeps on jumping to the top of a google search SO what IF Shanghai File Sharing in China  was there would it overtake other items.

But if I suddenly have a load of Chinese interest then I can say that my writing is a very easy read, and at the moment its a free download. WHEN and IF I find a real publisher THEN I hope  to make my fortune. All they have to do is click,read,laugh. I can also confirm that     The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker  will be followed by Tears For A Butcher in that book there will be a Shanghai Billionaire and his Playboy son, so its worth the 1,350,000,000 Chinese people have a good laugh,so they'll be ready when I finish the follow up comedy novel. There is of course Essays and Plays my other book that can be devoured too.

Here's my advert in bad Chinese, I used a computer to translate

www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com 屠户贝克和承办人是喜剧戏曲关于商店街道在老伪造和唱歌铁砧互联用笑声修造和修造的短篇小说。这味道韦恩购买每遗弃客栈并且他的妻子是怀孕与孪生, 事不能更坏, 墨菲夫人走向抢救以贷款, 并且建造者运作为没什么的2 套孪生, 上帝看得下来和帮助, 韦恩发现一个暗藏的地窖在地窖, 它充分之下40year 老威士忌酒左从战争WWII, 客栈是地方黑市交易商留下一切的地方。韦恩和家庭被保存。承办人有仇隙与交通监狱长为投入那里违规停车罚单在他的hearse.On 方式' 爵士乐葬礼, 玩具熊称帕特里克, 狗称有他自己的头脑的长毛的Amjit 。承办人的儿子留下事务并且Percy 困惑不解, 他的儿子回归以一个败家子儿子主张给饶恕, "父亲原谅我, 我现在知道计算机不是为我, 那里是没有爱在计算机里, 但在我们的事务有爱和慈心。承办人设法敲诈拆毁商店街道他们全都居住的一位弯的建造者。和平被恢复因此承办人成为竞选代理为建造者和采取他在所有休养所游览中, 以便建造者结束进入议会议院。推托赌赛马为业者微笑的保罗有赌注在竞选和赢取1million 磅。承办人是愤怒的直到她听见微笑的保罗有一条路对大马士革经验并且给了所有金钱帮助之外他的中国朋友的中国餐馆业。如此微笑的保罗成为荣誉的人, 和得到一个惊人女朋友在途中, 因为中国人必须尊敬他。文字是滑稽和舌头在面颊, 如果一些读者看见它正ma 和pa 书然后好, 但如果他们跨步他们看见我柔和地嘲笑在我的字符。譬如大Sid 是象一年在圣诞老人附近的屠户。面包师设法有爱生活的帕特里克但所有街道知道他的每移动。他的母亲被解除当他最后遇见正确的女孩, 贞女, 结果是人唯一的女儿在之前保存面包店许多岁月, 对帕特里克的妈咪它上帝奇迹和意愿。圣经传送带人, 简单的诚实的伙计将爱书, 和原谅帕特里克的愚蠢因为, 哎呀他是一个好男孩。纽约人和加利福尼亚将爱太因为他们将嘲笑传说的对方, 屠户贝克并且承办人是为大家, 并且在翻译它将找到更大的观众。我预言15million 销售在美国单独。我完成以一首诗从Percy 承办人迈克尔・Ge 死者和生存(c) 由迈克尔・我第一次看见逝者的Casey 当我九岁,my 父亲说不担心因为死者同生存一样是, 只有笑声留下他们, 闪闪发光去从他们的眼睛, 忧虑被举了从他们的肩膀, 并且他们的声音消失了对永恒。在闪闪发光将返回为它的天堂是星的闪光, 笑声将返回太为它是早晨微风并且转动的浪潮是他们的边震动以笑声。我对待逝者以和一样我给生活的礼貌, 虽然我发现逝者总更加礼貌。我的父亲并且有几个词说关于生活。他说, 生活是唯一灵魂的保管财物者, 他们认为他们的存在是一切, 他们知道一切因为他们体验许多事以他们的感觉。什么生活不承认是, 他们的时间是短的并且当我放置他们的身体然后休息他们的灵魂继续没有他们, 没有他们强, 没有他们微弱, 没有在哪里我无法说的他们美好甚至丑恶的临时形式, 对, 只有那它是一个更好的地方。承办人安置盒盖在棺材的Percy, 灵魂是自由的起点 Thats 全部, 现在给予我一个条件

www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com 买书在 或亚马孙 并且在google 书查寻。

p.s.hello from birmingham england where i am hobbling about as i hurt my back two days ago, 3rd time i've done it in 2 years. i once wrote about it in a piece called crawling like a worm in the dirt its funny and can be found on my site. my book is an easy read, if you don't like one chapter then just wait of the next or just dive in at chapter 7 and then go back to the start. Or just read my play Knocking and then try the novel The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker. Sorry I don't know your language, my kids speak Chinese with my wife but after 10 years I've still not learnt it. Thats about it, enjoy my site if you have the time. i'M NOT CLEVER ENOUGH TO HAVE A NICE SITE, MINES MORE LIKE A CARPARK FOR MY WRITING. Cheerio from a chilly Birmingham England

A Day in Our Life - Morning

I did the early morning school run yesterday. So I was up at 8 and scraping the toast while badgering my small girls to  make them get ready for school. They prefer gossiping and singing songs even first thing in the morning, instead of putting their uniforms and shoes on.

Then  I have to find the jam because I can never find things where my wife leaves them in the kitchen. Is the jam in the fridge or is the jam in a cupboard on a high shelf. Finally I find it in the fridge behind a bowl with a fresh fish on, the fish will be dinner later in the day.

Then its time to make the sandwiches for school dinners while the kettle is boiling so that I can make their breakfast drink of hot chocolate. As I make the hot chocolate I leave a trail of chocolate powder  all over the breakfast bar. Then once I've wrapped the sandwiches I have to hunt down the sandwich boxes. Once found and filled I have to find the school bags and make sure they have all their "rubbish" in their bags. Then telling them to brush their teeth and have a toilet I dash back upstairs for my own outdoor clothes.

I eat their crust edges and  steal a quick coffee before grabbing my coat and scarf and shepherding them out the door, not forgetting to switch the alarm on. Then its a 15minute uphill walk to get to the school, its right next to the woods and  golf course. I take my big daughter in first as her school the Juniors starts before the Infants which is on the other side of the main road which is busy and right on the crest of the hill. So we cross thanks to a very brave Mrs Kelly the lollipop lady, then we cross back to the Infants school, and my small daughter goes to her class.

Now I can go home, its all downhill  but the road is dangerous and you have to watch out for traffic as you cross all the little roads. Then once home I can have a proper breakfast.

Cheese Purse Watch a Metaphor

Cheese  Purse  Watch  A Metaphor ©

By  Michael Casey

Cheese, purse, watch  all three I’ve found in the past 10 days.
Does this mean the folks where I live are all absent minded kids?
I haven’t gained by any of these finds. The cheese was left in the
Basket by a shopper. My favourite cheese too, only recently I decided to give up this cheese, not because I have lots of mad dreams, just to see if it’ll help me squeeze into my pants my easily. Feta cheese now that really DOES give mad mad dreams, go on try it for yourself.

The purse I found on the edge of a zebra crossing, next to a pub. It was a nice big red purse, it looked full of money and cards. A few moments after I picked it up a lady appeared, she’d noticed she’d dropped it. It’s a good job I’m honest, but it does warn all of us not to ram our pockets with junk so our purses/wallets fall out.

The watch, and I really do love watches was the last item I found, I found it in the school playground when I was bringing home the kids, I do the home run school run. As for my love of watches I even wrote a piece called “The Watch and Me”, I hope eventually to have a posh automatic watch. I wear an automatic watch my Chinese dad sent over, its 15years old and did give perfect time until I changed the watch strap, and now because I wear a looser strap it is now 15seconds fast a day. It’s irritating because it was so perfect before. I suppose I spotted the watch in the playground because watches are on my radar.
I saw lots and lots of nice watches when I worked in a hotel for 3 years, our guests all had them. So I got my daughter to hand in the watch when she was handing in the raffle tickets for the coming Christmas draw.

Three items lost, 3 items found. Cheese, purse and a watch. Now is this really a metaphor? Cheese is something I love but have given up for a few months now. Is this a message to test my resolve, some form
Of test from God? Or a reminder of just how great is God’s bounty?
Eat enough but don’t be a pig?
The purse is money and we all need money even when all we can afford is just to eat, without any extras. Money is a tool to buy what we need, but when we don’t have a lot of cash to spare then we understand what we really need and we buy what we need and not what we desire. When we love money and will do anything for its sake, then it is our master when it controls us, instead of us controlling it. The correct quote is “the love of money is the route of all evil”.
I did think of becoming a male model but I decided I did not love money that much.
The watch can be a luxury item, it screams I’m rich, I have taste, I’m fashionable, I am so sexy. But it does have a function, it gets us all there on time. We are all in the same place at the same time, life, order and rules make us a timely workforce. The monks used to have a candle burning, this was the Omega of the day. Now we have atomic clocks and radio controlled watches, time is money so to  speak. The watch also tells us that are time here on earth is limited, so we should use it well. Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat, spare a though for your neighbours and talk to them, it may be the only time of year you do it. Time is after all the greatest gift of all.
Merry Christmas Everybody from Birmingham England. 

   

Pub to Bus Wisdom?

I went to see a friend and his crew today, a few beers followed by a noodle bar, a few jokes too. Time really does fly when you are enjoying yourself.  40 years worth of time to be exact, I've know BigD since grammar school, 40 years ago. In fact my mother knew his grandmother for years before we ever met. He remembers our exam scores from 40years ago. He credits me  with much more than I really am. Though I do use him for references, why  because he went to University, in fact he is Dr BigD PhD,  I had him sign his name at my wedding too, just so my kids in the future would be impressed by it all. Mind you once I married into a Chinese family and met Chinese folks a PhD was quiet common. If there are 1350,000,000 people you had better have a great CV or you'd get nowhere. Also at my wedding was William and Cindy.Cindy was a beach babe/lifeguard from Taiwan and  her husband William was Dr William and his PhD was in Metalurgy, and my dad was a Blacksmith, so William was both impressed and honoured to meet my dad. On the bus BigD, which is his nickname because he is so small and BigD was a brand of peanuts 40years ago. On the bus BigD was telling me how he had to take a few exams every year so that he stayed certified as a Path Lab person, obviously I'm totally ignorant of all things medical. On my wedding day JJ and BigD were doing chemical equations on a napkin in McDonalds, jj the wife has a chemistry degree so they have something in common. BigD once had chicken's feet cooked for him by jj at our house, he thinks I'm a girl for not trying them. The bus carried on so I asked had he made his Will yet, what with swine flu around, besides he could always leave me his stamp collection. Then I'd buy a bigger house. Sadly he said he wanted to be burnt with all his worldly goods with him , a bit like a Viking I suppose. I told him JJ wanted to be cremated too, but I told her I'd just bury her in the back yard. Yes we did get a few strange looks from people on the bus, but we had alcohol and chinese in us so we didn't care. He told me he'd send a postcard from Seattle, he's been going there for 8 years, so Christmas time is his vacation time. Then he stumbled off the bus, my stop is 3 stops more down the road. So I got off and did my usual sprint down the Bearwood rd. I noticed a half price bed in one shop, IF I can squeeze it into my dog leg stairs then I may get a new bed forChristmas. Then getting home I managed to fix the computer, 1st law of electrics, unplug and rest and then try again. So it worked. I also entered a win a watch competition on a watch website. So if I win then I'll have a nice new watch, a 250dollar automatic one, it will be my Christmas present.  At the moment I wear one donated by my Chinese dad the year before he was tragically killed in Shanghai. But I did meet him when I went to Shanghai in 2000, and he agree with me, he was the only one who agree with me that sending jj back to tell all my bad points WAS the right thing to do. And the rest is history or you can have a look at the photos section. That's about it really, oh by the way tomorrow our youngest is a sheep in the Nativity Play so I'm looking forward to that. And then 14-18 Feb is Chinese New Year. So Goodnight Wherever You Are, HIC

The First Christmas Card

My daughter brought her first Christmas card home from school today, so in time honoured tradition I picked her up and we placed it on top of the kitchen cupboards. In fact she had 5 cards, so we bunched them all together so that when the avalanche of cards arrives we willhave room for them all. Back in the days when me and my sister lived at home there were stings going backward and forward  across the living room and the tally was 200 or even 250, my sister was/is very popular so her cards were the bulk of those that the Casey family got.
So now 25years and more further on I hold up my daughters and we display the cards. Soon the kitchen space will be full so then I perch the cards on the paintings that we have on the walls, then we fill the space on top of the telly with more cards. Christmas is on its way. My brother came with cards and presents for the girls. I hid the presents and they will have to wait 3 more weeks  before they get them. They love their uncle because he always brings something, he does look a bit like santa too what with his huge white beard. Our mother no doubt blesses all her children from Heaven, we continue the love without her.
My youngest was at a Birthday party tonight so I took her big sister with me when I went to fetch her home. We went up the shopping street and could see the Christmas lights as they were switched on tonight. We also noticed how the posher streets than ours were so dark, at least our street lights were brighter. We passed by one of my dream houses, but again in the gloom I did not like it so much. Bringing  the small one home we got her to close her eyes and walk, she didn't cheat either then on the count of three she opened her eyes to see all the pretty colours that make up the  shopping street Christmas decorations. she was impressed.
Walking home we observed all the Christmas trees and lights that people had in their own homes, nice and pretty. Though it does remind me of County Kerry when everybody has a light in the window, so you can look from Cromane over to Inch on the Dingle Peninsula and see all the lights in the windows. I think its to guide the 3 kings, but ask your own local priest or Fr. Google may know. Though it was in 73 when I remember it the most. We  were all much younger then. Christmas is a time of Love and Family, a time of watching The Bishop's Wife with Cary Grant. Of watching a Christmas Carol with a tear in our eye, eating too much and spilling ice cream over the new jumper your aunty had just given you. So you will have to wash it first before you give it away to the Salvation Army. But most of all it is a time of Hope.

How to bribe the kids while the wife is at the dentist

Well, just how do you bribe the kids while the wife is at the dentist? The answer is Dr Who, a science fiction action show for all the family. Goggle will reveal all. My kids knew there were 2 Dr Who episodes on tonight on 2 different stations. They reminded their best friend and her nana on the way home,it was so important not to miss one.

Once home we had 2 hours before Dr Who started.So books out and must be read before any tv. Apart from me and Tv news, I watch BBC, Sky, Fox News. My girls hammered the books and I prepared their meal. Mini instant 3 minute pizza, followed by milk and bananas and oranges. 

Normally its Chinese food made by my wife, rice with everything,so what I dish up is a change for them. Its three saucepans on the go and my wife  stiring just like the witches in Macbeth, ubble, bubble, boiland eye of newt and tail of bat. That's how I tease her, you have to, its what she'd  grown use to after 10years or so.

The kids ate and I watched the news. Then the reading all done it was wash then Dr Who,  I got them to get all cleaned up  so they could watch Dr Who back to back. Dr Who then bed, everything all done by 8pm. Well so much for the plan. The 1st episode I did not want to watch again so I browsed the Internet, just in case Tiger Woods had stopped by.

The 2nd episode of Dr Who was set in ancient Pompeii, on Volcano Day. I have actually been there, back in 1995 its a great sight to see. If you ever get the chance then do go, but no doubt Google can reveal lots for you. So I enjoyed Dr Who with the kids, I should say that Dr Who started 40 years ago when I was a kid, it was reinvented recently and has won awards like the British equivalent on a Tony award. Yes that good. Dr Who does not die he just grows a new body and carries on, he's over 900 years old.  I'd love to see his 401 plan. So Dr Who ended and the kids went to bed. Result.

My wife arrived late, I knew she'd gone off for an adventure. Only to CostCo for margarine, with the coins she'd stolen from my wallet all in the name of car park machines. I had wanted to go with her tomorrow because you can get a great hot dog and a soda and a soda refill for 1,47 which is 2.25 in dollars I think. So I had missed my chance for a hot dog. She did have some news though. Her wisdom teeth would be taken out in January, and they wanted to pay her 150pounds or 220dollars IF she let them try a new anaesthetic. So they would be the witches and she would be in the pot so to speak. I told her she should have said NO.She had said No already. Then she told me the date. The date for her wisdom teeth to come out will be my dad's 8th anniversary of his death.