Burroughs has died.

I only really heard something was wrong on Sunday, and even then, it was a suspicion. Then he was taken in to the vet on Monday where they apparently took a lot of fluid out of his chest. The vet said it was one of two conditions, one of which treatable, the other not, but didn’t elaborate further and said that my mother had to wait for the lab results on the fluid. She heard this evening that it was Feline Infectious Peritonitis which is, for a cat, a death sentence. She opted to have him put down rather than struggle trying to breath a few more weeks of life. Only two weekends ago he was fine… I’ve also heard that apparently he had an abnormally large heart that may have been the cause of this and the virus was some ancillary thing, I don’t know….

I fear for my cat now, who has been staying with my parents for a little while. The vet apparently said that there was no chance of transmission, but the websites I’ve visited suggest otherwise. In any case, I think I’ll make good on my offer of Midnight to my mother, they’ll both be happier.

Hobbes and Missy lost to coyotes most likely, and now Burroughs, who probably had enough wits about him in the forest to evade those predators for life, felled by some apparently rare disease, from where I wonder. In any case, if there is a higher power, it apparently is most interested in killing our cats.

I think it’s sad that this blog even has the entry where we first got him, it was one of the first entries of the blog… 2.5 years of the big-faced cat. I wrote another entry once when we thought he was lost to the woods, and that we would wait long for his coming…we will indeed wait long for your coming,

Goodbye Burroughs

Alicia came over tonight, to get together, and she gave me birthday presents. Went to a nearby Starbucks where I opened them. She gave me a card where she wished me a 27th birthday, which surprised me since I was 26 (she added a disclaimer to the card when I showed her), hehe. She also got me a copy of the last Harry Potter book, as a pre-order, so I along with untold thousands of people can finally finish the books (it’s amazing how I can casually read the first one on a bet, and then go on to own them all, hah). And a touching gift of a portrait of me in a nice frame. She caught my flattering side, which is no *actual* side exactly, but an imagined side, as I think her rendering made me look thinner. I’m going to hang it on me wall so the cat doesn’t get it.

In the source photo, my mouth was open,
the same could be said about most photos of me.

We watched Knocked Up, which I enjoyed, Alicia thought it was so-so. The trick is all these types of movies have typical plots, which is sort of what makes them romantic comedies. Though my favorite of this kind I think is Mating Habits of the Earthbound Human (which seems to have a lower score, whatever). Then we had dinner and I took her home (that is I went on the TTC with her and watched, including a very very packed bus with a driver experimenting with instant acceleration).

It’s starting to get hot here, I think I need to get a few bottles of Drysol, put it in the tub, and soak in it (and eventually scream, I think).

I decided to take my new camera out for a spin, to work, to take pictures of co-workers, including a sort of mascot plant now in my possession, named later in life Penelope. But she’s had a hard life. Passed around from one owner to the next.

Will this plant ever bloom

No one knows her origin other than Jen, who will not speak of it. She kept the African Violet in her cube for quite some time. Apparently the only water it ever got was because of another person called Jason, who later left, and the plant started to die.

One day I was talking to Colleen, Jen’s cube-neighbour, and we happened to mention the plant, and to our surprise when we looked over (to acknowledge the plant we were talking about) the plant was gone. It’s new home was the trash. Colleen rescued it, but soon after she left, so then another person named Mike claimed Penelope, and one day he left too. I inherited this plant, on the mend, but still in bad shape. I incubated Penelope under a light, and Elena, my cube-neighbour, brought little plant food sticks, special sprays, and also gave the plant new soil. And the poor plant is really doing well. Actually, the leaves are crowding each other a bit now.

One day, Penelope shall bloom, one day…

Another bus story,

Already incredibly tired and frustrated from today, on the bus ride home a woman and Little Boy get on the bus at some point between work and home. Little Boy simply cannot help swinging from the (utterly useless) hand-holds suspended above, blocking other passengers as they attempt ingress or egress. Woman seems a little too old to be Little Boy’s mother, Little Boy appearing to be around 8 or so.

As about 10 stops from my destination, Little Boy decides it is fun to swing from the bar, while reaching up behind and toggling the Request-Stop button on the vertical bar next to him, avoiding the gaze of his .. keeper. After a few stops where no one gets off, the bus driver gets a little irritated and punishes all by waiting, a very long time, at the 3rd last stop of my trip. Then he gets going again, and stupid Little Boy does it again… finally the bus driver just sits at the stop, now only one stop away from mine. Another bus comes up along side and stops, and almost everyone on the bus gets out and onto it. I walk up and ask what’s going on, the driver says he won’t move because of the people messing around with the signal. So I tell him Little Boy did it.

The *mother just says “I didn’t see it, so it wasn’t him”… I really wanted to say “Well, that just means you’re negligent”, but I decided to demonstrate how Little Boy did it, saying how I saw it several times from the perfect vantage point I had at the back, also telling him that swinging around wasn’t a very good way to stay inconspicuous, he should stay still while pressing the button. By now the bus was already moving again, with I think only me and Little Boy and *mother on it. Then I say “But now I’m pressing the button” and the bus driver confirms that this is my stop. I leave, annoyed.

I don’t enjoy telling off other people, or their kids, especially on what I will laughingly call Toronto’s Transit system, but today, ugh.

The annual sigh. I was pretty down about it, lots of other stuff going on, hard to tell if there was any causation there. One year is so much like another, if it weren’t for the anniversary, I’d probably forget how old I was.

To the next…

Curtis came over on the Sunday and Monday of the long weekend, being the only person who was free to hang out. He gave me my birthday present, and I could never have guessed it in a million years. It was a desktop catapult, which I will use to terrorize co-workers. It’s pretty neat, despite my inability to photograph it properly.

Now I need little explosive charges

We just hung out that night, he slept over then on Monday we went to the ROM. Tell me, what is a museum without dinosaurs? Whatever it is, the ROM is now. Pretty well the entire 2nd floor was closed, and that has the stuff I find most interesting. But we went to basically every exhibit that was open, made an afternoon of it.

Today Salman snuck into my workplace and we hung out for an hour or so, he missed our re-org so it seems things are all changy, but that only happened recently. Shouts out to Salman if he’s reading.

My birthday is tomorrow. The annual sigh.

It’s my brother’s birthday today, and another few days until mine, thus we are in the short span of time where my brother is 5 years older than me, rather than the usual 4.

Since I was home we did a few things while it was convenient, like had a family BBQ which was a success with the minor note that part of the family didn’t show up. Also my parents did both our birthday stuff so I got my swag from them already. I also left my cat behind… poor Midnight… but there were some things going on at my apartment that I had to get her out for, so once finished I’ll reclaim her…

I am now armed with a set of good knives that I’m sure Curtis will want to sample the next time it’s safe to prepare food at my apartment. I also now have a paper shredder to further outwit all those who should wish to steal my identity (I know, I’m a freakin’ good catch). I’m also now in possession of one of those Bathroom Reader books, one of which John has at his cottage (which most of the people I know are at right now).

I also went out and got Stargate Atlantis seasons 1 and 2 (1 was a present from my brother, wherein I picked it out and he bought it, heh, and 2 I got since they had it). I also bought a digital camera which I’ve been playing with almost constantly.

It’s a Casio Exilim card which I would link to directly, but it’s a crappy flash site. 3x zoon, 7.2 megapizza’s, 2.6 inch LSD. Well, I jest, I do know what those terms are, but they are just buzzish crap. The camera is nice, I also got a case for it, and a 2 Gig memory card, which should keep me happy. I cannot for the life of me find out how much memory it has built in just by reading the manual and the box, but this site tells me that it is 8 megs, which is garbage, but the 2 gigs should keep me happy.

In fact, here are some pictures of stuff…
(more…)

There is lots to talk about, and I haven’t updated in a while, but honestly, I’m too tired. It’s very possible I’ll have just oodles of time to write in this thing very soon, but if and when that occurs, I’ll just post this.

Years ago when I lived in Ottawa, Ricmoo was, and still is, a mediaphile, and one of the things he showed us was this music video that for some reason intrigued me, but then I forgot about it, never knew what it was, and life went on.

Until a certain Simpsons episode parodied it:

And here is the actual video:

You just have to love practical effects.

Hopefully youtube doesn’t pull these videos. I was in the middle of watching Odyssey 5 episodes when they all got pulled, ugh.

Bonus video – Grace Kelly

I’ll try to rattle this out before I forget most of my trip to Montreal.

My car was delayed leaving for quite a while due to other people having work and interviews to do, in the mean time I bought The Old New Thing by Raymond Chen which I ended up reading most of during my stay in Montreal and the trip there and back.

After we got to Montreal (like 6 hours later) we met up with the other car and had dinner. And by had dinner, I mean we walked… for a very long time… looking for a restaurant, and it was probably half an hour before people started stopping and looking at the menu’s for places. This should have foreshadowed things to come. See, we were a group of 8, and no matter what the size of the group, I’m guaranteed to be The Fat One (I’m sure there’s a lemma on that somewhere), so while everyone else managed to keep up, my feet and shins and such began to hurt, and more, and worse, and so on. So I ended up trailing at the back some distance. We eventually hit a restaurant we accepted who’s name I cannot remember and stopped. There was a bit of a line, but in their very cramped dining area they managed to seat the eight of us. I had brochette du poulet if I remember correctly, which was pretty good. Oh, and then we walked back. Since it look us like 2 hours to find a restaurant, and then another 2 hours maybe to eat, plus getting to Montreal late in the first place, is was kind of late by the time we were done. Walked back some ways until we hit a bar called, strangely, Le Drug Store. I had a couple of amaretto and pineapple drinks and the evening passed with only one horribly embarassing photograph.

We headed back to the hotel (Days Inn) at some point, I can’t even remember. Then I checked out the room, it was very nice actually: two double beds, one for me, one for Curtis (no more spooning, yay); A TV; bathroom; semi-functioning lamps; a phone that always claims there is a message… well, despite those last few things, it was still a nice room, very clean and beds were comfy.

I woke up with a terrible headache… having drunk two drinks the night before. Why? Anyway, At around 11 we headed to a place called Coras (which I have no idea if I spelled right) for Brunch. Everything there looked terribly fattening, so I took the most healthy thing I could find, a banana-hazelnut chocolate crepe. It was huge, so I only ate about three quarters of it before giving up. Then we were off, for .. more.. walking. Okay, there’s nothing wrong with walking, but I do have my own difficulties with it… like nothing shows off to others very plainly how out of shape I am when I can’t keep up with their 2 hour treks walking at what I consider an entirely non-leisurely pace. But, strangely, but luckly, the subway for Saturday and Sunday was free, so we used that a bit.

The first part of the trip was shopping which is always a futile experience for me. Well, clothes shopping, we went to nice places that simply don’t make clothes that fit me, so I hung out with the girls and totally failed to be of any use at all. Alicia tried on a jacket and asked what I thought… I thought it fit okay, but the colour was drab. She liked the colour, but thought the fit was way off. I’m lucky I’m a guy and can get away with not having 17 pairs of shoes and outfits.. I have clothes, not outfits… and so I digress. Later we split up, some went back to the hotel for sleep, but not Curtis, Alicia, Laura and I… we headed to Old Montreal which was actually very close to our hotel anyway, and checked out the rain. Yeah, I Should probably mention that, it was pretty nasty all weekend, it never poured while we were out in it, but I did get damp due to my boycott of umbrellas. So it wasn’t the best weather, but we did sight-see a bit, which was nice. There are some photos of it, but as they include me, I’ll never post them myself. I was amazed at how often people spoke english there, I never needed to use my french at all. Then I tried actually using my french, and each time, failed miserably. Even stuff that made no sense… we were getting drinks at a place, and I asked for “Un Coke”… the guy asked me in english to speak more slowly… “A Coke”… “ah, une canette de Coke”…… .. …. .. .. … “oui”. That was the last time I made an effort. Then we tried to go to dinner, which was even more futile than the first time, since we brought wine and thus had 3 conditions, relatively cheap meals, bring-your-own-wine allowed, can seat eight, and no lines. Well, we gave up on that last one after a while and waited in line (after searching for a couple hours) for a couple hours. Someone then heard it would be another half hour before the line would move again, and as the rain was starting to come down, we sent an envoy to find another restaurant, and we did, Mochica.

Now that is a strange place. It didn’t have the bring your own wine, but it does have some of the longest wait times around, which curtis constantly defended as a Brother Chef. But the wait gave us time to go to the bathroom and check out the little wooden sculpture of two little guys, one attempting to force the other to felate him. I am not kidding.

My dinner was the Pulled Chicken in some sort of sauce. What I got was what I would have considered Obliterated Chicken, it looked like it had already been eaten once, but after being assured by another who had ordered it, having been just as surprised and trying it, it turned out to be okay tasting after all, I just ate with my eyes forward.

After that we got ready to go clubbing, which I was dreading, since as I think I’ve iterated before, I am not a clubber. I’m just too unattractive. But, as it turns out, no worries.

Most of our party was homosexual, so we ended up at a gay bar, which I didn’t clue in to at the time (we cabbed there, yeah, no walking!). I think I realized something was amiss when the drag queen dance show started. But at least I didn’t feel bad about having not picked up. I danced a bit, but my terrible dancing cannot compare to that of all my gay companions, or indeed the rest of the world at large. The last part of the night was spent trying to scream at each other to find out if we were leaving, when, and what was that about leaving. The music was really really loud Alicia, when asking me if I wanted to join in with having a shooter, nearly perforated my left eardrum, and not in a good way. I actually drank relatively a lot, considering I had promised myself that I wouldn’t drink after the headache of the night before, but the $1 shooters they had must have been watered down (or perhaps just slightly boozed-up water). At 3 am the place closed and we headed back to the hotel only stopping to have slices of pizza at a little place. Alicia agreed to split a peice with me, and then decided to decline, I tried to convince her otherwise, to the point of simply eating my half and deciding to throw out the other half, until the others we were with decided to eat it, heh. Curtis abstained from the pizza, but if he had offered her the slice, I bet she would have taken it. Piffle.

We went back to the hotel and I slept quite well, but we had to wake up relatively early for the check out. After that, not much to say, the two cars met up at a restaurant where curtis ate the largest amount of poutine I could even contemplate, and I looked at the condom machine in the restaurant bathroom. One of the dispensers actually sells four items, that are in a theme (pleasure pack or something)… a condom, oil, oriental ring which I have a shrewed idea about, and pleasure extender which I can’t even being to guess at. The great thing was is that they expected you to actually “collect all four”… like you’re going to keep buying from the machine hoping to complete your pleasure pack collection and have that wild sex with supplies by some roadside restaurant.

We met up once more to divvy up our money for the shared expenses, the hotel, the car rental, the booze, and I pretty much exausted my budget for the trip, which was $300. Then Laura drove me to a subway station where I could take it to a nearby stop and … yes, walk home. At least by Sunday the weather was amazing.

So ends the account of our voyage to Montreal, it was pretty fun though the weather was sucky. One day I hope to return, armed with some better french.