Food in the belly, BritCom on telly


My aunt and uncle came down today for parents' weekend, and they brough my grandfather along. This meant that I got to partake in the festivities (read: free food. yay) but it also meant that I had to spend the day with a warm, wriggling, feeling of guilt deep in my stomache. All self-induced, of course. Rationally, I know that I have real, valid reasons for not being able to visit my family the past two months. But deep down, I know that part of me is glad for those reasons, because it meant that I wouldn't have to see my grandfather wandering around, looking as though he wasn't quite sure where to go, or what to do. It makes me just want to curl up into a big hug with him, but that's just not the way it works. Don't get me wrong, I love my grandfather dearly. We get along great. But he's an engineer, and that's very much the way he is, and I am very much not an engineer, and so there were always, shall we say... miscommunications. That is to say that if you were to put the two of us together in a room, it would probably take us about four hours to figure out what the other person was saying. But my grandmother was always there to play the part of mediator, to explain things and work things out. And now I just feel like I have no way of talking to my grandfather. Which only just brings me back to missing my grandmother and feeling guilty about not visiting again... and it's just a viscious circle. And I wish I could find a way out.

Screw You, Eh.


Everybody sing with me!

"I'm an acorn, small and brown

Sitting on the cold, hard ground

Everybody steps on me,

That is why I'm cracked, you see

I'm a nut, I'm a nut, I'm an acorn nut"


All day long, I've been tormented by the AIM Icon in my taskbar. It insists on blinking to let me know I have mail, when I have no mail. So, time and time again, I go to check my webmail, only to be continually disappointed. I think people should send me more e-mail.


I just spent 10 minutes explaining to a co-worker what an uncircumsized penis looks like. I love my job.


My curling club has apparently become part of a smear campaign. In one of those slanderous commercials, one of the local candidates bashed the opponant for allocating money to curling. Hah. I'm amused.



I haven't talked about it much here, because I'm not the type of person who talks a lot about such things. But to the sniper who's hunting people around DC, I have one thing to say to you.


Screw You.


My housemate is obsessing over it, and my friends are all worried and scared. It was the only topic of conversation at Wednesday's Pizza Lunch, the press won't stop harping on it, and I'm sick to death of it. Yes, I'm horrified by what you're doing. But guess what, I'm not going to change my life. I still went to the bar with my friends, and I'm still doing what I was planning on doing this weekend. Okay, so, I'm still not doing anything this weekend. And maybe I'm a little glad that I don't have a car, so I don't have go get gas. But all in all? I don't care about your reasons. I couldn't care less about your life. I don't care. So F you.


I now return you to your regularly scheduled lives.

Hmm. Ow.


It's four days later, and the front of my knees are still sore. I'm starting to suspect that I got frostbite, and that my legs will soon turn gangrenous and will have to be amputated. And that's all fine and dandy, so long as I can still curl.

I'm supposed to be reading an article for my class about film as a plastic media, and it really is quite interesting, but I can't concentrate on it. Anne lent me a dS zine, and I just can't leave it alone. In fact, I think I'll go read some more....

Mmm mmm


Lesson for the day:

There is nothing that a few Midori and Pineapples won't make better. This includes an International Economics problem set that a) I didn't understand and b) was due today.

Was planning on spending the whole evening in my room, fussing and fighting with my problem set, and trying (most likely unsuccessfully) not to rip it into shreds. But instead a friend came to the rescue, tempting me with an evening of drinking and quite possibly karaoke. "But I have econ to do." "Bring it with you!" And this, friends, is how I came to be sitting in the middle of a bar, drinking drinks and listening to bad karaoke songs while doing Econ. It may just have been the company (and surely his help with the problems didn't hurt, either), but the problems were not quite so tedious as they usually are. I still can't claim to understand them at all, and I'll probably still get a horrid grade (off of which I'll still get the 5 points taken off for handing it in a day late), but at least my homework did not cause me to inflict physical harm upon those surrounding me.


No, I'm not saying if I sang or not. But let's just say that the wonderful place may have been treated to a rendition of "Dayo" by a laughing group of people unlike any they will see in the near future.


And again with the plusses - my hair is gone! Last week, a kind woman I work with offered to cut it for me because I had been complaining about my lack of money and lack of time. (I hadn't had my hair cut in 10 months) She brought the supplies in today, we slipped into the bathroom during lunch, I came out an hour later an entirely different person. And I couldn't be happier. 'bye, bye, hair!'


But this lack of sleep thing is starting to get ridiculous. It's time for me to get my ass in bed.

zzzzzzzzzzzzz


Mmm... functioning on three hours of sleep last night... eight over the past two nights, kind of past functioning and downsliding into a perpetual state of "huh?" So much for my Econ Problem set. I have a feeling that it'll get turned in tomorrow with very little markings, and a whole lot of drool. Ah well. It was totally worth it. I won't bore everyone with all the details of the trip to New York, but you can console yourself in knowing that I managed to assault an actor, demean same actor, and become part of an "oz sandwich" all in one night. What's happened to me? I was such a good kid.

I'm at that phase of tired where I'm fairly dizzy and headachy, and it just feels like the whole world is not only spinning, but it's part of an elaborate plan to bring you down. I was going to post something I've been thinking about this past week - my new view on my life, courtesy of tetris, but that's definitely going to have to wait until I have more than two functioning brain cells. So, maybe next time.

My Knees Have Foresaken Me


"What do you call somebody who spends six hours painting circles on ice?" Sounds like it should be the beginning of a joke or something, doesn't it? But no, today the answer is... Rami. Well, Rami and Fox. Last night at the meeting, they invited anybody who wanted to help to come up to the club today and help out. We were a little late, but we got there. Let me tell you. When we got there, it was just a big piece of white ice with some splotches of red on it. By the time everybody finished up (5:30pm, I'll have you know), it looked like four sheets of actual curling ice. We laid the lines, we painted the houses. All the logos are on the ice, and everything's been tacked down. And then tacked down again. And again. And again. How do you tack something down on ice? Water, of course! About halfway through the day, a girl scout troup showed up, and one of the club members got to talk to them for a while, so that was cool. Later on, a random family that had been driving by apparently got curious at the sign and came in, so we talked to them, too. It was hard work, it was long work, but it was a good day. We got to know a few of the club members better, and I now feel a sense of accomplishment. I feel a little less guilty about not being able to help out with committees and such over the summer because of my lack of car. But most of all, it's going to be really cool come next week when we go out there on the ice, and I'll know that I did that. That's right, I'll be curling in one week. One Week. Score.


Lesson of the day?

Painting on ice is insanely more difficult than one would think.

Curling High


Have you ever spent time in a place that just makes you happy, makes you calm?


Tonight was the first membership meeting of the season for the curling club. Sure, I had to hand over a big chunk of money (and I'm paying in installments!) and the playing season doesn't actually start for another three weeks. The ice isn't even ready yet - we still have a few floods to go. But they've laid out the lines and the circles, and tomorrow they're painting the houses. Then we can put down the hacks and do the rest of the floods, and later this week, we'll take out the stones and cool them down and lay them on the ice. We got to hear about the season opener Bonspiel (which, in honour of the area, is being called the "Inaugural Bonspiel" ), and all the plans for the league nights. We also got to sign up for some cool programs. In addition to the delivery workshop I'm attending next weekend, my friends and I signed up for an officiating course. So, to put it mildly, I'm excited. :-)


In other worlds, I just hate it when I get stumped by problems that IMDB can't solve for me. For example, I'm convinced that George Buza (the big guy, Stuckmore, from Men With Brooms) played one of the Geiger's bad guys in the Due South episode "Manhunt." But it's not listed in his credits, so I can't be positive. I hate that.


Today's Countdown:

2 Days until New York
18 Days until the gals come to town
19 Days until the start of the curling season
24 Days until Men With Brooms on DVD