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19day

2007-12-30

It is the season of the sprit, the message if we hear it, is make it last all year

Filed under: General — 19day @ 23:45:50

Another xmas come and gone. Went home earlier than usual since for the first time in 2 years I took the critical days around Christmas and boxing day off, yet stupidly didn’t take new years eve off, but that will likely be fortuitous since I doubt I’ll do anything.

Couple of familial activities, went to Wasaga to visit grandmother and one aunt and have brunch at what will likely be the usual spot. Went to other aunt for new years eve gathering. It was actually pretty calm there for a while, right up until christmas eve day, when the dog did stupid things. He’s always pretty excited and nosy at christmas, but he managed to dig around in a bag and grab a box from yet another bag within it, and unwrap it in his own clumsy way, and eat the contents. He consumed some cardboard, some foil, two sticks of lip gloss for one young relation, some plastic from the packaging of a gift for another young relation, and the contents of that box, which was 8 chocolate truffles. Now, I knew chocolate was not altogether good for dogs, but the vet implied over the phone that it was a little more urgent that that, so we took him in. He was given eyedrops that caused him to vomit up everything, including his morning treat and some of his dinner from the night before. Then he was given charcoal stuff to drink, and spent the afternoon in a bit of a hyper stupor. The next day he acted as if nothing had happened, which is a pity since he probably learned nothing.

Christmas day itself was pretty calm, rose late, leisurely opened gifts, had a turkey dinner, didn’t have to go anywhere, or entertain anyone. And here is what I received:

The Complete Calvin and Hobbes (ISBN 0-7407-4847-5) Which is (wikipedia says) 22.5 pounds, and I would have guessed even heavier than that. It has basically everything he did for Calvin and Hobbes, so I can toss out all my previous books. Or I would, except that the collection reads like 3 giant bibles. I’ve been reading the first one, but carefully. Once finished, I’ll probably put them aside to appreciate, heh.

A trilogy, Viking – Odinn’s Child (ISBN 978-0-330-42673-2), Viking – Sworn Brother (ISBN 0-330-42674-5) and Viking – King’s Man (0-330-42675-3), I don’t actually know anything about these books yet, hopefully I’ll have time to read them sometime before next xmas, heh.)

A ipod speaker mount which is neat, though delicate looking. It also charges the ipod which I quite like since my only other option is plugging it into the computer. It appears to work well so far and has pretty good sound. It runs off AC or 4 AA batteries, but not sure how long they really last, the company says 8 hours. The main purpose was so I could listen to music in the shower, but the thing is nice enough that I’m afraid of doing that. I might try putting it in a plastic bag, heh.

Some new towels (my current ones are paper thin and falling apart at this point), some new workout clothing, some general shirts and a sweater. Some wine glasses and some general short glasses which look like they would prefer holding alcohol (and I won’t disappoint).

I also got 6 cans of soup (3 consumed so far). Basically it is the No Name (specified to Zehrs and associated stores) vegetable with pasta soup. It used to be under the Chunky brand, but they sold it off or something, so now I can only get it at Zehrs, and they appear to be forbidden from existing in Toronto. Dominion is my closest store, and they don’t have it, alas.

My brother got me a set of pots and pans which my kitchen desperately needed (1 stew pot, 2 handled pots of large and small sizes, 1 large frying pan and 1 small frying pan), and I also got a heavy-duty cutlery tray for all the new cutlery I got from my grandmother (months earlier). I also got lots of smelly stuff to mask my horrid natural aromas. I have enough cologne to last me for a couple years, which is good since the last time I ran out I started using Axe and it’s not all that good, no crazy women throwing themselves at me or nothin’.

I’d take pictures of some of this stuff, or at least my cat that’s being very cute right now, but my camera, bought for my birthday back in July, has ceased to function. The battery anyway. Completely dead, and when put in the charger, the charge-light flashes, which is supposed to indicate a defective battery. damn thing.

I think I gave out some pretty good stuff as well, including a DVD player and the Yes (Prime) Minister box set, a slew of other DVD’s and cash. I also gave a Wii to a friend, which is interesting in that I coveted one myself, but it’s always easier to be extravagant for others then to oneself, or such it is for me.

Anyway, I’m working tomorrow, and probably will stay in for my second annual not-feeling-well new years bash, except this time I have many bottles of ice-wine.

2007-12-18

TTC – Tolorance Tapped Completely

Filed under: General — 19day @ 23:38:18

I really dislike the TTC, today was a bad day. It’s probably no different that some other people’s days, and maybe this goes on a lot, but I’m really tired of this.

First of all, the massive snowfall was supposed to screw up yesterday, not today, but today was far worse. It took me around 2 hours to get to work today, you could drive it in 20 minutes, I bet if I was driven, point to point, probably wouldn’t have taken longer than 40, but for the bus factor.

What really gets me is the ads they have for the TTC. Here’s one of their own website

TTC Ad

Advert for TTC (the image)

Okay, so lets look at the various things it claims. First, a safe ride home.. well, perhaps, maybe, if you are an unaccompanied female between 9pm and 5am (while in the winter it’s pitch black at 5pm, so that’s pretty useful). Secondly, cleaner air for my kids, again, perhaps, but 95% dead is still dead, so until it’s a more useful service and more cars are off the road, pointless point. Ah, the third one. Getting to work before my boss (she drives). Okay, neat that they made the boss female, but I’ll say that’s cancelled out by only having white people in the add. And it’s like the advertisers couldn’t seem to work in the fact that they are comparing against a driver without making it a sort of passing exposition in the speaker’s speech balloon. But the joke is that you can beat a driver using the TTC. Maybe if you only use the subway, and only if you live on the tracks at one stop and your work is on the tracks at another stop. Here’s how riding the bus is different from driving…

When driving, you don’t have to wait outside for 45 minutes waiting for your god damned car to arrive, watching other cars that won’t take you where you want to go fly by, sometimes several of the same.. er, numbered, .. car. Whatever. Still, the only car that could take me where I wanted to go was far later than it should have been. Cars were moving, buses were absent.

When your car arrives, you don’t normally get packed in because 60 other people are using it too, nor do you have to clamber over a snowbank because no one bothered to plough the city the stop, again.

One’s car doesn’t inch along slowly letting people on and off, making personal encountered with other people’s body odours very acute.

Nor does one car suddenly decide to ditch it’s god damn 40 passenger load and become a Short-Turn car and sit you waiting for another half hour, 75% of the way to your destination, waiting for another car that will take you (which you’ve been assured is ‘right behind us’). Bullshit. They claim it’s for scheduling… we are on FS, (laughably termed Frequent Service, more aptly Fucking Slow) which is supposed to mean approx 10 minutes, but no actual times. So why not just drive? We waited forever, so will other people, don’t screw over your current customers for the sake of those unknown. But then again, it’s a monopoly, we don’t actually have a choice. People don’t take the bus because they want to.

Of course, once the other car arrives, and you stop one stop before your goal and another 30 people get on, it’s very fun to force your way to the front because there is only a 3 foot wide opening in the snowbank and guess which set of doors will open there?

A lot of the crap later was due to Brentcliffe Ave once again causing a nightmare for motorists by having it’s lights out and cops directing the traffic, one. direction. at. a. time. And losing a lane. That intersection has been hell for a while, but it can be open and fine for 3 days, and then suddenly shit again. You can’t anticipate it.

And of course, same crap happens on the way home, wait 45 minutes (from 9:15 to 10pm) for a bus, 3 go by the other way… nothing for 45 minutes, and then 3 come trendling up. Why the hell would they short turn me in the morning, but not fix it at night.

The Better Way? Better than what? Better than death? Perhaps, but not by much.

2007-12-05

Kobayashi Merry

Filed under: General — 19day @ 17:03:39

So I enjoyed a night of xmas cheer and door prizes last Saturday, as I had gone with Alicia to her company Christmas Party. Being December 1st, I guess it’s not too early. I of course was in the middle of a cold at the time, having come down with it on Wednesday, ruining my vacation days on Thursday and Friday. I made it to her place by 5:30 (half an hour early) but she actually anticipated that I’d likely arrive early. I wore my suit as is well documented. She wore a black and white dress of elegance. We chatted for a bit while waiting for a cab to take us to the venue. We wanted one for 6, but they seemed to ignore that request and sent one right away, so we asked the cab driver to take the long way. By now, the weather was merely cold, but there was no snow.

We got there just after 6 and went in. I was flummoxed at first by the non-requirement of presenting a ticket, which I guess was a good thing because they didn’t have any. The company was taking photographs of the happy couples, and as we are neither happy nor a couple, we decided to have the photograph taken anyway.

We hung about in the hallway with the 80 other odd people who were there at the time because the main hall wasn’t opened yet, so we had our first drink of the night, white wine. Our mission was to drink sufficient quantities of alcohol to induce us to dance. The bar used a ticket system, and we got 2 premium drink tickets with the invitation, but the extra tickets were kinda pricey.

Eventually we were seated and we sat with some people I didn’t know, which isn’t very hard when it’s not your company party. We were harassed occasionally by a Joan Rivers impostor for some reason. The meal was nice, consisting of a clear vegetable soup, a light salad, chicken breast, filet mignon which was unfortunately too rare to be palatable to me, and then dessert. The dessert consisted of two lines, one for traditional treats like brownies, cookies and such. The other line was for a chocolate fountain which was kind of neat to see, but it drew far too large a crowd and they ran out of fruit to dip under it.

Then the dancing began, something I’m not particularly good at. There was one slow dance, to which I entreated Alicia to join with me. She declined, thus sparing me a repeat of the zombie-like horror I committed the last time I slow danced at highschool Formal. The rest of the dance music was basically of the random-body-movement variety, but there was a battle between the stuff the younger generation preferred, and the older one.

Our drinking continued, to facilitate dancing. I think we had the same number of drinks in all. The initial glass of wine, 2 more glasses with dinner, rum and coke, rye and coke, screw driver, and Apple Sours and soda. Perhaps others, I no longer recall. In any case, the effect on me was sadly momentary and my dancing was in a painfully sober state.

The crowd thinned out very early, by 11 it was getting embarrassing to be on the dance floor. Eventually the people we had met over the course of the night and hung out with were leaving, so we decided to leave as well. That’s when we saw the blizzard. Alicia tried phoning for a cab, but she couldn’t get through, and we eventually got a lift with a coworker back to her place. It was really coming down then. Back at her place we had to be quiet since her parents were sleeping, so we chatted a bit until 2am. I never know when to leave, so I left it up to her, and 2am seemed to be her limit. Rather unfortunately, when she rang for another cab, most places weren’t taking calls. We finally got through to a place and said it would be around 40 minutes.

They weren’t kidding. She and I spent the next hour on the main floor of the house so we could see the cab, but our need for quiet, and her fatigue, made it a very quiet hour of sitting, staring at the snow building up. At 3am the cab arrived and I took my leave. The snow being quite bad made the going difficult, and we had to turn back on a few streets and try others due to the road slipping. Finally got home at 4am, carefully put away my suit for the next time it’s needed, and went to sleep. I slept pretty much through Sunday as well.

I’m still recovering from that cold, yep, attractive as ever.

2007-12-01

Do You Like Dogs?

Filed under: General — 19day @ 05:13:29

Just bought the second season of Dr Katz. Neither Curtis nor Alicia understand why I like it.

That’s one example of why.

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