From the drafts: Weekend TV

From October 4, 2010. I know why this never made it. I only wrote 5 sentences. I think I was also going to talk about Strictly and the need for Bruce to retire. Not much point now that we know won. Kara Tointon and em...who won the X Factor...Cher went out...hmm...that boy band was in...oh the guy...with that hat, what's his name? Sang the Biffy song? Matt Cardle! Ha! Yeah definitely no point going over that again.

It's been a good few years, but I think I am sucked back into X Factor again. The last season I saw any of at all was 2006 when Leona won. But I've got sucked in again. It started with the auditions. That's how they get you, with their crappy try-hards, attention seeking weirdos and sob stories.

From the drafts: (no name)

This never even had a title first time round. But it was a somewhat funny story at the time. Very Princess. I think I was going to go on and tell you about my weekend. No idea what that was going to be about now. This is from July 7, 2008.


I miss living on my own a lot. Like finding things how you left them.

I was about 5 cm from the seat when I realised there was no seat. I tried to stop myself from sitting down on bowl itself (I struggle to think of a worse surprise than that) but kind of stumbled backwards, in the process hitting my right butt cheek off the corner of the sink and somehow hurting my ankle.

Would never have happened in my house.

The A Team music

I don't mean the one at the start, you know, 'In 1972 a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit'. I mean the one half way through when they are getting somewhere, decide to help the man because he really needs their help (and because his daughter is hot and Face fancies her) and they make a super crazy weapon out of next to nothing. Well the music over that. That's the music I mean.

I had a good productive day today. First one for ages. When I have those sort of days I want to hear the A Team music. Course it never actually happens, except for in my head.

I had a productive day in other ways. I unwittingly sent a link in an email to everyone in my contacts. Like everyone. My old bosses, my power company in Singapore, the people I had to email to get Daily Show tickets and probably you too. Oopsy. Sorry if you got one. But if it's any consolation it's probably worse for me, as half the people reply to you to tell you've been hacked (yes, I know!*) and you get stopped from sending any emails for a while so apology emails are hard to send afterwards. Hopefully all you did with it was press delete.

Anyway, over the next few weeks I doubt I'll be on here much. But fear not, I'm going to release some previously unseen Princess material from the archives. I'm sure you can hardly wait.

*I might not have. Thanks then.

God is not a man. God is love.

I came across this. Somewhat relevant for me as I spent today reading about 'For God and Ulster'.

Colorad-ohInearlyforgot

Everytime we've been to Colorado we go to church with the family. Although no one at the church really knows us from Adam, we are getting more and more familiar with the church and who everyone is - two years ago along with regular church we went to taco night (mmmn tacos) and last year they were in the middle of changing pastor so we got to see how that difficult and awkward process happened.

During our first Sunday this year the church had been flooded because of a burst pipe (remember I said it was cold that weekend), so the next Sunday they were using an elementary school to meet in.

Which by the way, can our primary schools get a few of these signs please?! So cute!

After the service, for reasons best known, there was a pizza lunch (I suppose maybe to allow members to commiserate over the flood damage) As we were gathering the troops to head back home, Kristi walked past one of the tables and called me over.

"Tina, have you ever heard of Philip Yancey?"

I said I had and expected a book recommendation to follow. Instead she pointed over her right shoulder and whispered "that's him!"

Turns out the Philip Yancey is a member of their church! How cool is that?! I don't know why Kristi never mentioned it before. She said that a lot of times he's away on a tour, so maybe he hadn't been there other times we were there.

I told her that my mum loves his books and so Kristi offered to introduce us. No doubt it would have sounded better if I loved his books, but honestly I can't think of a book of his that I've ever read all the way through and lest he ask me for my thoughts on 'What's So Amazing About Grace?' I thought it best to leave it at Mum.

We chatted for a while. And for being interrupted from his pizza he asked all sorts of interested sounding questions. We even got on to the summer camp that Megann and I worked at and, bless him, he said he'd heard of it.

I was too embarrassed to ask for my photo with him, especially as it wasn't even me who he was told 'loves his books'. Plus we all know what sort of startled look comes over these celebrity types when I get my photo with them. (coughPaulClarkecough coughClareBaldingcough.)

But of course I snuck a sneaky one just to prove it.

Again, not a brilliant photo. Quite worried about my surreptitious photo taking ability of late.

Philip (that's what his friends call him) told me that he's touring Britain in May. Maybe I'll pop along and say hey! Best finish off at least one book before then then.

Colorad-eo

You know it, of course we went back to the rodeo! This year I absolutely made sure I did not forget my camera so I could bring you the best, well better, photos. And we had better seats this year too. I'm nearly embarrassed to say we booked in advance to be sure of better seats. I needn't have worried as the row in front of us was empty! Well sure isn't it good to be prepared.

Of course what rodeo could start any other way than with a ra ra-America display and a reminder of how great and free it is?!

In fact so prepared we were, we had bought westerny shirts (that were on sale) in Old Navy during the week. Last year we stood out from the crowd because we didn't have cowboy hats. This year we thought we'd made a small gesture to the cowboying fraternity.

I think our seat neighbours were impressed we'd made the effort. Well I'm sure they would have been had we told them.

We saw most of the same events as last year, there wasn't any mutton bustin' sadly. But we did get to see the Miss Rodeo Colorado coronation. I'm not joking.

This is the moment; when one Miss Rodeo Colorado hands over her crown (yes, an actual crown which goes over their cowboy hat) to the new Miss Rodeo Colorado. As I'm sure you can imagine it was an emotional moment...lost on Megann and me.

The rodeo is really like nothing else I've ever seen, and to be quite honest I don't think it would even be legal inside the EU. But animal rights aside, who doesn't love a good night out with cowboys?! (I could be wrong, but wasn't Linda McCartney a big rodeo fan? No? Ok then.)

I put together this montage of video clips from all the events we saw:


I know it looks like there were as many people there as it does during a UTV report of a Saturday at Seaview but there really were a lot more people than it looks. As I'm sure Crues fans say too.

You really do sit there with your mouth open at what you're seeing. Whether it's someone getting thrown all over the place on a horse or bull or someone being able to wrestle a steer (check me out with my rodeo lingo) and tie its legs in 5.7 seconds. Like Megann said she can't even tie her own shoe laces in 5.7 seconds! Your brain just cannot take on what you're seeing.

Obviously I took pictures too, ah the added advantages of bringing your camera! I stand by last year's declaration that none of these things are on the good side of crazy.

That white thing mid air is his number. Yes, he was being thrown that violently his number fell off. Bodes well for his spine, don't you think?

Team roping. So much precision happens in such a short space of time.

Real cowboys wear pink shirts.

Their horses just stand there so still.

Of all the events bull riding has to be the craziest.

Not just for the bull rider, but for the ones inside the ring which distract the bull enough so the rider can get away. There's a guy inside the barrel. According to the programme he's a 'Professional Clown and Barrelman'. I'm sure it's what he always saw himself doing.

You can just see his head pop out of the barrel.

Our seats were up at the riding events side of the arena so we could see all the competitors. I loved watching the build up to their events and seeing how relaxed they were. They just stood there and chatted like it was no big deal.

I think on balance though, compared to last year it had been better. The standard was better last year, maybe because we went later, so the all-comers were knocked out and it left the real pros, I'm not sure. But that is a worrying sign; I am able to grade my rodeo experiences and know what makes a good rodeo. I mean, really?

Aside from the rodeo events that were on we had a couple of horse displays too.

These are the Clydesdales. And on the stage coach is the Denver equivalent to Noel Thompson and Barra Best. Oh yes, the stars come out for the rodeo!

These are the Westernaires, a local horse formation group that do all sorts of fancy things riding with American flags.

But our favourite thing of the entire night was a horse called Justin Boots (or JB to his friends). Jerry, his trainer, is a horse whisper type - he got JB to do everything without so much as rope or reins. Take a look at the videos I took:

Not a rein in sight!

Then his wife (Jerry's, JB is still looking for that lucky lady) came out in their truck and JB jumped into the back of it while she waited.

Well if that impressed the next thing was this:


JB: The Wonder Horse! (I can't help but feel the first week in January is awfully early to be finishing up your 2011 rodeo calendar, but what do I know about rodeos?! Or wonder horses for that matter.

At the end we tried to take a picture of ourselves in our cowboy-esque shirts. But they were a bit rubbish. A girl saw us trying and offered to take it for us. Very nice of her.

And not a bad effort at all but I look so full of the cold!

Once we had our coats and all on and were ready to leave, we turned back to the girl who had taken the photo and there she was chatting with her friend, only the newly crowned Miss Rodeo Colorado! I kid you not. Of course I took a photo of her for you.

Well I didn't say I took a brilliant photo of her.

In fact I was so busy trying to take a photo I completely forgot to courtesy. Well I imagine that what you have to do when you see a rodeo queen.

Colorad-ho (ho ho)

Well I had to add those extra ho hos in there. Obviously.

This year in Colorado,I noticed a lot more in the funny t-shirt section of shops. So I took photos for you. Well you're ever keen for a laugh too. It's why you come here. Boom!

First of all for children:

If this hadn't been a kid's shirt I might have been tempted.

Ski Explorer! See what they did there? You see it's Dora the Explorer, but she's skiing (without a helmet I notice), and so they put those two things together. Oh you got that? Ok.

Elmo is an angel...a snow angel!

Elmo snowboards?! Who knew?! (And again where is his helmet?)

Now for the humourous adults amongst us:

Confucius say skiing be stupid.

No mention of any chair lift stunts though.

Ah! Capitalising on the snowboarder/skier hate. Clever.
(Taken in a shop window, sorry for the reflection.)

I like to think someone was spurred into buying this after seeing me the days I had the cold towards the end of our trip. Is there anything worse than having to blow your nose while skiing?! Sure, ok world famine...

Sadly, I didn't see any 'My whoever went to Colorado and all I got was this lousy t-shirt' t-shirts. I would have bought you one otherwise.