Christmas is over, and it's now New Year's Eve. I'm excited because I'm actually able to write on the proper day this time. I'm getting a bit tired of writing though, as my last entry was quite long - and this one may be too. Fortunately, the eventless, boorish month that is January will soon be here.
Monday was Christmas Day. I hadn't slept very well, so I was tired when I finally got up around ten. I'm not the getter-upper-at-six-and-open-all-my-presents type, so I wondered downstairs and went straight to the back door to see if Fluffy, my parents' cat, was there. He was, and he came inside for a few minutes before scurrying back to the door, eager to again sit outside in the cold and rain.
As usual, Mum rushed me into the living room to open my stocking. And, also as usual, it had overflowed into a Sobey's bag. I felt like telling her that we shouldn't be buying each other so much that the stockings overflow - I mean, these aren't small socks - they're hand-knit (by my grandmother) big-assed bags that are two feet long and about six inches wide. They make good sleeping bags for babies, and we once had one stolen by a stork. Dad got up and came downstairs shortly after I started opening my stocking.
The stocking had the requisite lottery tickets sticking out of the top. It had a bottle of soap, shampoo, TWO sticks of deodorant I really didn't need... do my parents think I'm a dirty person? At least there wern't gift certificates to a hair studio. It had chocolates (Ferrero Rocher, Quality Street, Toblerone and a huge slab of Superstore chocolate). I'm sure it had a few other things I really didn't need as well.
Dad opened his stocking and found many of the same useless items he gets every year. Mum had already opened hers, of course. It had the same useless items she gets every year too.
After the stocking, Mum rushed us into opening our presents so that we could be finished in time to go pick up my grandmother. We fired through them pretty quickly - again there was far too much. I felt bad for Mum, as her pile was half the size of either of mine or Dad's. She'd repeated for weeks that she didn't want anything for Christmas, and my Dad took that as gospel. I too felt broken by the pressure we're under year after year to find nice things for her when she gives us no clues. She did really like the deluxe tea candles I picked out for her - the only item Dad and I purchased for her on our one trip to find her presents this year. Otherwise there wasn't much exciting for her. Our Bosnian friends from Ottawa sent her pyjamas - the top was XXXL, and the three of us could've fit into it. The bottom would've been tight on my skinny-as-a-rake aunt. She did get TWO coats, but she'd picked them out herself and they were upstairs in a closet. And she got Il Divo tickets for herself and Dad (she'd woken me up one morning in November so I could order them).
Dad always does well for Christmas, as he's easy to buy for. He got the usual shirts, magazines, CDs, DVDs and some Elvis items (this year, chocolate and a trivia game). He has a habit of examining every item in detail, and this angers Mum as she wants to get everything opened so she can clean up the mess.
Finally, there was me. I got an awesome piece of metallic art portraying a deranged, vicious rabbit - it is hillarious! I felt bad about it though, because I'd robbed JW of the opportunity to get it for me. I'd thought that maybe it was too expensive for her, and I really wanted it. I even thought of buying it for myself, but instead my parents got it on a shopping trip for me. I also got a rice cooker that I'd asked for, as I'm FINALLY almost through a huge box of terrible minute rice (it's been years). Now I can go buy some real rice and cook it right - maybe that will take my famous stir-fries to the next level? I also got a golf club that I'd picked out on my own and put on reserve at Joe-Mac Golf. Dad had picked it up while I was in Seattle. I suppose there was some surprise in it, as he might've forgotten to pick it up.
I got the second of the two pictures I'd picked out at the Dalplex craft show in November (I bought the first myself). It's the one I liked the most, so I felt like it was best to keep it from myself until Christmas. That reminds me, I have to hang those up today, along with a *yuck* golf calendar (more on that later). I got three DVD sets, each of which I'd picked out, though I didn't really expect them all. They were: a Hulk Hogan DVD set, the Animated Star Trek series (been waiting for this for 20 years) and the fourth volume of the Looney Tunes sets (perhaps the most prized sets in my collection).
I got a sushi set. I love sushi, and it's cheap and easy to make, so why not? Yes, I asked for this as well. It came with two dishes, two soy sauce mini bowls, a few roll-out mats, seaweed, and chopsticks. I'm going to try to make some avacado sushi, to try to get JW into it. I'm not sure if she can even tolerate me eating fish sushi, but if she can, the avacado sushi may be a way for me to get her out for sushi so I can have a good feed.
I got a new, desperately-needed bathroom reader. And yes, I did get a few things I hadn't expected (not the sweater I'm currently wearing, though): a couple of different t-shirts from the Bosnians, a nice long-sleeved (it fits!) shirt, and some miscellaneous items for the house.
So yes, as you can see, Christmas is a bit retarded at my house. We get too many things for each other. Every year, we say we're going to cut back, but it never seems to be that way. I guess we have in a way, because no one really gets big ticket items like they used to. Also, there are rarely surprises, something JW has made me more conscious of this year. It was especially driven home in that I got even fewer surprises this year than usual. The gift-opening portion of Christmas was quite uninspired (sorry Sobey's). I suppose I should mention (since I'll have forgotten by the next time I read this) that Sobey's' slogan this season is "Have an inspired Christmas." I think they've just given up on slogans that have meaning.
After the gift-opening flurry, I left to pick up my grandmother. When we got back, we had lunch. As is traditional on Christmas Day, we had miscellaneous appetizers - cheeses, crackers, egg rolls, little burrito-like things, mini quiches (sp?) and of course rum-laden egg nog. Once again this year, I later found that my love of these snacky lunches had ruined my dinner (yes, dinner). After lunch, my grandmother opened her gifts. During the opening, JW called and we had a quick chat. Afterward, she sat down to dinner (yes, dinner), and I went back to continue watching my grandmother open her gifts.
JW called again after the eating, and I headed out to meet her at her parents' house, so we could exchange gifts. I must've been in a weird mood. I was excitied to see her, and I absolutely flew on the highway, averaging about 140. About half way there, I had a thought that her parents' house was located out along Cobequid Rd. I thought about it some more, and I decided that we'd (JW and I) only gone out that way in the past to visit a Frenchy's in the area. We had more often gone toward Beaverbank Rd, which is close to her church (including the ice cream hut where she used to work). I got a thought of her giving me directions to the ice cream hut mixed up with directions to her home, and so I got into the left lane heading toward Beaverbank Rd. This made me feel like I was going the right way. I knew she didn't live in Beaverbank, but I figured her area was just a little further out. Twenty minutes of driving at high speeds convinced me otherwise. I passed the Cat's Cradle, a type of cat hotel. I remembered JW and I having talked about it, so even at that point I thought I might've been going the right way. However, by the twenty minutes, I was quite sure that I'd gone much too far and that her road was not that far from Sackville Dr. I was absolutely furious. I had very little time before I needed to get back for my Christmas dinner, and I'd wasted a good chunk of it being stupid. By the time I'd turned around, it was dead obvious to me that her parents' house was out Cobequid Rd. I wondered how I could've mixed the two up. I found a road connecting Cobequid to Beaverbank, and I took it. I passed Sackville High School and in my madness assumed I'd now seen JW's high school. It is VERY close to her parents' house, but so is her actual high school, as I now recall that she showed me where it is (approximately) once.
Anyway, in the fullness of time, I found the house and went inside. My mind was racing and I couldn't hide my feelings. It is very rare for that to happen (not so much anymore, I guess), and I surprised myself a bit. I was short with JW and even shorter with her parents. They actually later said they thought I was scared to death of them, when in fact I actually felt quite comfortable, except for my racing mind and heart.
JW and I sat down on the couch in the living room, and her parents left us alone to open our presents (as they later pointed out), though they were certainly within earshot, so technically, they hadn't. I found it difficult to focus on the presents, though I gradually calmed down. We took turns opening. JW gave me another one of the metallic pieces of animal art - this time it was an equally-angry dog or wolf with wings. The two are now facing off on my downstairs mantle. She also gave me a Thai cookbook, though I'd been discouraged as of late due to the inavailability of fresh ingredients. I suppose I could try an Asian store! She gave me a Canadian quote book that I've already thoroughly enjoyed - I've even added a couple of the quotes to my Web site. It says on it that it is intended for the bathroom. I think my self-deprecating humour has come back to bite me, as I got three bathroom-related reading articles for Christmas in total. I've played up the fact that I have to have something to read in the bathroom, which has gotten me quite a few laughs. I've been known to read the backs of toothpaste tubes, receipts in my pockets, or even my own ID cards (in a pinch). So I guess I deserve it. I do like the subject matter in these books though, because it's always short and to the point. I don't have to invest a lot of time for my reward.
JW also got me some pot-holder thingys that even she admitted were an odd gift for me. I've stashed them away, likely never to be seen again ;) She also made me two excellent Christmas CDs, which I've been listening to pretty much since I got them. Finally, she gave the the dreaded golf calendar. For some reason, everyone thinks that because I love golf, I must love everything to do with golf. The truth is, golf merchandise is often tacky and unfunny. I don't derive much enjoyment from looking at a picture of a golf hole - I'd rather be playing it. Of course, I've never told JW this, so she couldn't know. The gift was thoughtful, and that's what counts. She does read these entries, and so now I've saved myself from such a fate in the future! I also HATE golf art. I hate golf jokes. I don't even like golf instructional books - you have to be taught by a person, in my opinion. My parents got me a golf joke calendar, and I read all the jokes in about one minute. Now it's as useless as the scrap paper in my recycling bin - perhaps more so. To me, the best type of calendar is an art calendar. If something is going to be on my wall for a whole month, I'm going to have to want to look at it. I don't really use calendars to schedule my life, because there is so little to schedule. So I need to have something to look at on it. Anyway, that's my calendar rant.
After we opened our presents, JW's parents flooded back into the room and I opened their present to me. It was a dip-keeper-colder. I don't know if I've ever served dip in my house before, but the day I do, I'm sure it will not be useful, because I'll be too lazy to fill it with ice. The mother's explanation was funny, though I didn't laugh of course, "We know you're health-conscious, so now you can leave dip out for a long time without it getting bad." I was thinking, "so yes, I can now just leave my dip out overnight, as I'm often tempted to do." It's not that difficult to put things back in the fridge, and if I don't, it's because the dip is gone. I like dip, right? People who know me know that such things do not go rotten :) Anyway, at least the mother TRIED to get me something different. And who knows, maybe it will be useful some day.
I gave the parents some chocolates, which they seemed excited about. At first I thought her father's reaction was, "these are going to make me sick", but I soon realized that it was more "these are dangerous to my diet!" JW and I went into the hallway and hugged a bit. She wasn't feeling well, unfortunately, so I tried to make her feel a bit better before I headed home.
I raced home and made it back in only eighteen minutes. A far cry from my forty-five minute trip out! I got home to find everyone there - my aunt, her boyfriend and son, and my cousin. After the obligatory questioning about JW from the boyfriend, I sat down before a sip of beer before being asked to help carve the turkey. I did so, and shortly after we sat down to dinner. As always, it was turkey, mashed potatoes, squash, peas, carrots and stuffing. There were cranberry sauce, beets and green onion chow as well. We all cracked our crackers and put on our hats. I got a key chain picture frame. JW later suggested that I put her picture in it, but I wouldn't want it soiling her image. What do you expect from a cracker though.
Oh yeah, there was also the appetizer course, which is a bowl of seafood salad - lobster, crab and a sauce. There is normally lettuce underneath, but Mum couldn't find the lettuce anywhere. It was delicious as always, as was dinner. I couldn't finish, as I was too full from lunch and pre-dinner snacks.
After dinner, the tea and dessert came. The dessert is always either rum cake or raspberry trifle, as always (or both!). My grandmother had forgotten the hard sauce for the rum cake, so we had to go with vanilla ice cream. The trifle has always been my favourite, and I might even like it more than cheesecake.
After dessert, everyone sat down in the living room and we played the Elvis trivia game. The boyfriend and Dad did most of the playing. I only knew one answer, but was too slow to come up with it. The game went over well - there was a lot of laughing and even some singing. I was again very tired, and I had trouble staying in the moment. I almost fell asleep a couple of times! It was terrible - I felt like my grandfather must've when he used to do the same.
After Elvis, everyone got ready to go home. I drove my grandmother home and came back to an empty house (except my parents). Mum went upstairs to relax, and Dad and I went downstairs. We watched police chases and car wrecks, and then Family Guy - the perfect choices to encourage Christmas cheer. I went to bed without staying up to watch the clock hit midnight for the first time in a long time.
I can't believe I just wrote that much for one day - good thing Christmas comes once a year I guess. That reminds me of a mug Mum showed me. I'd gotten it for her as a five-year-old. It said, "Santa comes but once a year... aren't you glad you're not Santa?" :) They said it took a lot of restraint at the time to keep from laughing in my face. There was no restraint this time around!
On Tuesday (Boxing Day), I sat around the house scratching lottery tickets, after a bacon-and-egg breakfast. After that, I packed a few things up and headed home. Dad came down shortly after, and we put up a new toilet paper holder in the bathroom, as the old one had broken. Dad left, and I believe I spent most of my free time writing in this accursed stimulator. I also put a few things away. I started getting calls from TA around four to come over and drink. HJ was already there. I finally broke down around six, and I headed over despite knowing that JW might like to come. I wasn't sure whether she'd even be back from her aunt's at a decent time, and I wasn't able to get ahold of her by phone. She called about an hour later, and I went over to her place to bring her to TA's.
The party was pretty good. ET and J were in town for the first time since last February, and it was good to see them. KOD were there, along with CD and one of Kim's friends. AN and AB were there, and later on CC showed up. One of DD's military friends was also there. So it was a good crowd, and the evening went pretty well. I hadn't eaten enough, and so I got drunk on very little liquor, and subsequently I've forgotten about many of the details. Fortunately, I put TA in charge of photography, so I have a visual record of the events, including a close up shot of CC's breasts and numerous shots of pretty much the only single girl there (KD's friend). There were even short videos (taken by accident) in which the poor girl accused TA of taking pictures of her breasts, to which he responded "You're not that good." Yes, TA, photgraphing a girl's breasts and then telling her "she's not that good" is always a good way to score points. "He died of shame."
ET and J and JW and I each called cabs at the end of the night, but neither of us was patient enough to wait for it to arrive. HJ also tried to bum a ride off JW and I, even though he was going in the opposite direction! JW and I decided to walk home, which was fun.
On Wednesday, we got up and lazed about for a bit before going to the mall. We exchanged a sweater I'd gotten JW for Christmas for one that fit. Then, we went up to Bayer's Lake *shudder* to look for a memory card for JW's camera. We got one at Radio Shack (NOT "The Source"), after failing to find one at Staples, Future Shop and Superstore. After that, we went for lunch at Dairy Queen, before going into Chapters. I went in for nothing, and came out with six books! I tried to make a wise crack when the cashier asked if I'd found everything I was looking for, but I guess the Boxing Day madness had already beat her soul out of her.
I got two hardcover books on Astronomy (which is good because there have been many updates since the last time I got one), a book on the Egyptians (for reading more about the things JW and I had learned about during our personal tour at the art museum), a Simpsons book for TA for Christmas, a Darwin's Award book for AN, and a book on acts of roguery for myself ;) I love the humour section at the bookstore - which is fortunate because I'm not too big on much else. I've always had a desire to buy lots of books, but I'm not sure where it comes from because I always rightly convince myself not to buy them, because I wouldn't read half of them.
JW bought a book (which is now in my possession) about dealing with depression. She thought it might help me with my shyness among other things. I read a few pages, and it seems to be written in a humourous fashion, so I'm looking forward to reading it. I have an interest in pyscology, but I've never really taken the time to explore it. Similarly, I think I have unexplored interest in philosophy as well. I should've taken one of those classes in school instead of Classics, that was taught in such a way as to remove any interest in the subject one might have had.
After Chapters, JW and I went back to her place. I proceeded to get my computer ready to be re-installed, while she did her own thing. Later on, we decided to order a pizza. I was out to prove that Donnini's pizza is excellent, while she was out to prove that it is crap. It turned out that we are both right. If you order an entire pizza from them, the toppings are plentiful and they go right to the edge. This is what we did. The prices are superb as well. However, if you want a slice, you basically get a piece of sparse desert (not dessert) that probably tastes as such.
After the pizza, we watched Better off Dead. It was a movie about a boy who continually tries to kill himself after his girlfriend leaves him for a better skiier. He eventually races the other skiier and beats him one one ski. The girlfriend comes running back, but he pushes her aside for another girl he has met who appreciates him. The movie only has a plot to hold together literally hundreds of jokes, puns and scenes of physical humour. The writers spared no jokes - it was like they put in every joke they could think of, figuring that everyone would appreciate at least a few of them and therefore like the movie. I did like it for just that reason - there were quite a few funny things about the movie. Some were REALLY funny. But at the same time, it had some of the worst comedy I've ever seen. Terrible one-liners, jokes that are revisited again and again (beat to death) and unfunny physical comedy (who'd've thunk it?) were common. I think it is a movie that I'd appreciate more if I were to see it again. It reminds me most of Team America. I thought Team America was VERY funny at first, but I later came to think that it was terrible (without seeing the movie again). I guess I'll have to see it to be sure.
On Thursday, we basically repeated what we'd done on Wednesday. This time, we went to the mall WITH JW's watch, and she got her watch strap. Then, we went downstairs in the mall where she bought a really nice long coat. She looked beautiful in it, especially with her scarf and long hair flowing down on it. I tried to limit my comments to her to avoid influencing her decision. She did buy it in the end - it was a great deal for a nice coat. Hopefully I'll get to see it soon... perhaps tonight?
After that, she mentioned that I might have to wear my suit New Year's Eve, so we went and bought a green dress shirt to go with my suit. One of the strangest meetings ever took place in the store. It turned out that we BOTH knew the cashier. I asked her a question, without realizing it. Then, as I realized it, I started to say that I recognized her from somewhere, when at the same time she and JW realized they knew each other from working at the theatre. Not realizing that she had started talking to JW, I cut in and said "But I know you from somewhere, too, right?" Then JW chimed in asking where we knew each other from, before talking with her a bit more. JW knew her better than I did, and I didn't say anything else to her.
After the mall, a terrible thing happened - we went to Winner's, so JW could spend a thirty-dollar gift card before it "expired." JW was there for about an hour an a half, picking through every piece of merchandise. I walked to The Bay to see if TA was there. I even got some groceries, but still she was there. Finally, it ended and we went back to her place.
I freshly installed everything on my computer, and she wrote in her blog and made some cards. I also watched the commentary for "Star Trek: Generations". It wasn't as good as it should've been. After that, we ate leftovers, before sitting down to watch "Dead Poet's Society". The movie was (not surprisingly) excellent. It was about a group of boys at a prestigious all-boys school. There were influenced by a free-thinking teacher who encouraged them to do the same. This encouragement, however, clashed with the strict environment of the school, and friction between the free-thinking and one of the boys' parents caused him to commit suicide. Of course, the teacher got blamed, and he was fired. However, the boys knew he'd done nothing wrong, and they supported him right to the end, acknowledging what he'd done for them. This is definitely a movie I'll see again at some point.
On Friday, I think JW'd had enough of me, and I wanted to get some things done at home, so after a late breakfast, I headed home. We were to have her friends over that evening anyway. At home, I put presents away and continued to work on last week's entry - isn't it terrible when writing the entry becomes the focus of my week? :)
I went back over to JW's around seven to find her in terrible shape. She'd assumed I wasn't going to have the car, and she needed to get to Upper Tantallon the next morning to meet with her teacher. She'd gotten a phone call during the week for a potential full-time position!!!! I was so happy for her. She was discouraged over how much work it would be, but she needs to do it. I can remember how terrible it felt to start working hard again from my university days - I'd work fifteen hour days, then suddenly be off for a month. Then, when classes started up again, I found even an hour's work to be daunting. I always got back into the swing of things after a while though. It's just that first hump. Anyway, JW called her brother for a ride to Upper Tantallon, and he chewed her out over always asking him for help. He told her she couldn't do anything on her own - that she was helpless. Of course, I was angry to hear this. I was angry that he'd made her feel bad, and I felt like he was overreacting. From what I'd heard over the months, she asks him for very little. I wanted to go over to his house and set him straight. Of course, I didn't. I figure that he's under a lot of pressure now, as he isn't going on a big field trip next summer due to money problems, and he's worrying about even feeding himself this term. He has a lot to deal with, and I think he just lashed out at JW from all the pressure. I don't think for a second he means what he said, and if he does, he has other problems to deal with.
JW was insistent that she deal with the problem herself, and she wouldn't even let me give her a hug (though she snuck one with her roommate). Maybe she doesn't like to feel vulnerable in front of me, because I help her out a lot. But I want to help her out and I don't feel like things are uneven at all - our realities are very different, financially, and she is my girlfriend. Still, it is good for her to deal with things on her own, and I understood why she didn't want me comforting her, though I was a bit angry at the time because I saw her as refusing the help she so much needed. In the end, things turned out alright, as I had the car and I was able to drive her.
Her friends (her best friend J and her husband) from Ottawa came over later on, and we had a good time. There were lots of treats, lots of stores and lots of laughs. Her friend seemed smart and quick. She seemed a little bit arrogant and American-ish (like she'd tell you when you're wrong about something), and she confirmed that a bit when she talked about how she can't tolerate stupid people. Stupid people seemed to be the dominant topic of the evening :) JW assured me afterward that she doesn't put people down. She used to play video games, and she likes Star Trek, so she is okay in my book. She's smart and funny. So I managed to avoid yet again chaffing with one of her friends. The husband was quite different - he seemed smart, but he had trouble focusing on the conversation, which he pointed out on numerous occasions. He danced around the room burning off excess energy. He seems fun though, and I didn't feel like I chaffed with him either. So, the evening was a success, and JW and I went to bed shortly after they left.
On Saturday, we got up and I drove JW to meet the teacher she is going to replace (at least for a while). I dropped her off, and went to Queensland beach. It was freezing, but the water wasn't frozen. I took some pictures with JW's camera, and I collected some beach glass, including the hard-to-find blue glass! After that, I explored a small island that I'd always wanted to find out about - turns out it is a single road with some houses on it. No beaches. Then, I explored the subdivision around the house of the teacher JW was visiting. Finally, I parked in front of the house to rest and wait.
When JW came out, I drove her to the grocery store where we both got a few things. I then dropped her off at home so she could get started on her work - she already had reading and marking to do! I felt bad for her losing a few days of her vacation, but then I remembered she'd had a few days extra at the beginning. I went home and became a master chef. I made broccoli salad, then a stir-fry for lunches next week, and then two huge vats of chili.
After that, I headed over to TA's. CA came over later on, as it was UFC night. We watched a bit of TV before heading down to the bar, where we had to STAND the entire evening. You have to get there really early to get a seat. I was extremely tired, but the standing helped me stay awake. Toward the very end, we got to sit down before finally leaving.
I slept well, and today I got up and had breakfast and a shower, before spending the entire afternoon writing this entry. Now I have to rush to get ready to go over to JW's. I still haven't shaved or ironed :S I guess I'll finish the last bit of this entry up tomorrow.
OK, it's tomorrow. Today. I met JW at her place. She wore a skirt, a nice shirt and a nice sweater. She put on her new coat and scarf. She looked beautiful, and I can't wait to see the pictures! Anyway, we headed over to Brewdebaker's for dinner, only a few minutes late. We got stuck at the end of a massive table, which wasn't the best for conversation. We both enjoyed our meals, and I had a couple of drinks. It was also E's birthday, and the cake made by JW's friend B was delicious.
After the meal, we all headed over to M & J's place. JW's old flame, C was there. They seemed to hit it off really well, and it scared me a bit at first, but it was just me being paranoid. I mellowed out a bit, and even felt like C might be a good guy. He reminds me very much of AB. JW seemed happy to see her friends, but as I later found out, she was having trouble having all of her friends, and some enemies, and me together under one roof. This made her seem distant, which of course bothered me. I purposely stayed away from her - I wanted her to have fun with her friends. When she left the room, I made sure not to leave right away. I tried to hang out with other people, and I'd rate my overall performance at "fair". The distance between us made it hard, but I got by.
Midnight eventually came, after some fun DVD games and good food. Everyone went outside to watch fireworks that the neighbours were setting off. Then we lit up our own far-less-impressive sparklers and had some fun twirling them around.
After coming inside, JW and I sat in the living room where a musical conversation broke out. I didn't contribute much, until we got to Radiohead, and I took the chance to gloat about having been to one of their concerts. I didn't know much about the other music they were playing, but I liked most of it. I think I need to download some Smashing Pumpkins, and perhaps some stuff done by the guitarist in Alexisonfire.
We left around 1:30, and JW drove us back to her place. On the way, we discussed her distance that evening. Ultimately, I came to understand it, and I no longer look on the evening in a negative light.
Happy New Year!
I'm currently listening to: "Gangbangin' 101", from "Tha Blue Carpet Treatment", by "Snoop Dogg".
Movies watched this week: "Better off Dead", "Dead Poet's Society", "Star Trek: Generations"
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
1456 - No Seattle Makes Good Seattle
I've just been sitting around thinking of something to do for most of the afternoon. I just realized that I haven't yet written for last week, and I'm now two days late. Well, I suppose Christmas is as good an excuse as any :)
The Seattle trip was at times fun and at times annoying and stressful. It tended to be more fun the later in the trip it got, and it was annoying and stressful at both ends (due to travel). Monday was a bit scary, because AN and I went to our first day of training. We had no idea what to expect - it could've been anything from a class of thirty people listening to a lecturer, to the two of us sitting down with an ordinary worker being quizzed on things we didn't know. Fortunately, training turned out to be in a small classroom setting. There was a key person attending, and the training had been reorganized at the last minute to fit their schedule. AN and I, as well as a few others, were merely observers, while this person got what they needed. The day passed quite slowly, especially as the lecturer continually got stuck trying to complete simple programming tasks for the program he was demonstrating. He also was constantly interrupted by a loud-mouth ass in the back of the room (his boss) whenever the ass felt a comment was vague or incomplete. The ass proceeded to shout and make phone calls for much of the day. The end of the day was great, with three of the top dogs in the room pitted against each other in verbal combat. It was really quite entertaining, as they went around in circles, trying to convince each other of things the rest of the room had long since understood. Of course, AN and I had nothing to contribute.
AN and I were very tired Monday, as neither of us had slept very well after all the travel. After work, we ducked into a nearby Thai restaurant, ate huge, tasty meals (mine was a spicy coconut soup and salmon in rice with peanut/coconut sauce). We were later told that we'd eaten in the worst Thai restaurant in town. After the restaurant, we took a short drive up and down the main street next to the hotel - all we could find was strip mall after strip mall, each with the requisite tanning salon, hair/nail studio, pharmacy, pet store, grocery and ice cream hut. After the eighth such mall, we got discouraged and turned back. We said our goodnights, and I hit the sack around nine local time.
On Tuesday, the training continued, only it was even more focused on the key person. He asked dozens of questions, but with a new instructor that day, the answers seemed to make sense, and they came without undue effort. The day was extremely boring for AN and I, as we learned very little. The time dragged on for an eternity, and only occasional short chats with JW kept me from going completely insane. After work, C-GW (our supervisor in Seattle) asked us if we could entertain ourselves for the evening, to which AN and I did not reply, as we were already pulling out of the parking lot.
We drove straight downtown to do a bit of shopping. The ride downtown took about forty-five minutes, as our hotel was quite a bit north of the downtown core. The traffic was bad, and in fact it was bad right through the entire week. We arrived downtown and parked at the garage nearest the highway. I had looked up the area on the Internet, and I knew it had several large malls. We walked around aimlessly, neither of us really sure of what we were looking for. We managed to spend only seven minutes in a huge Macy's - we kept thinking we should go into such stores, but then we would realize that we wern't shopping for ourselves, so we'd leave. We tried to eat at one restaurant in the first mall, but in typical AN and LW style, we simply would not wait the twenty minutes necessary to get a table. We wondered to the next mall, where I bought several gifts. I bought JW a little drum made by the native people of the area, and an African percussion instrument at a nice African store. I also got miscellaneous t-shirts, shot glasses and mugs to say I'd been to Seattle. We left the second mall and walked toward a large neon sign that eventually said "Market". We got excited that it might have lots of potential gifts, but it had closed hours earlier. We turned around and walked back; there were poor and homeless people everywhere, and it was apparent that only a short distance separated them from the rich and well-to-do at the malls. We found ourselves starving and back at the second mall again. We went upstairs to the monorail that takes one to the Space Needle, near to where we had parked. Of course, the monorail had stopped running, so we broke down and bought ourselves lousy dinners at the food court nearby.
After the food, we meandered back to the car and headed back. Again, we both went to sleep pretty early. I had gotten a cold that day, and I was starting to feel pretty bad by the end of the day.
I'm going to stop here for now, as I have a party to get to. I'll try to write the rest soon. Party on.
It's two days later, and I'm back now. Where was I? Oh yeah, I'm on to Wednesday now. On Wednesday, AN and I finally felt like we were getting somewhere as our star pupil had departed, and the training refocused on us. We actually used our computers to do things - we installed the product we were being trained on and played around with it a bit. The slightly incompetent instructor had returned, and again there were many hold-ups and hang-ups, but we learned some. We had pizza at lunch and I talked to JW when I could. My cold was REALLY bad and it was making everything else seem worse. The passing of the midpoint of our trip made me feel a bit better.
After work, AN and I were again left to fend for ourselves. We decided to go catch a Supersonics basketball game. We drove straight downtown after work, and parked next to the Space Needle again. We decided to "get the needle over with", so we went up for fourteen dollars each. The top part of it was small and nicely decorated. I took several pictures, and I even took a video during which I walked around the entire circumference of the observation deck - it was kind of funny because I got stuck behind a slow kid, and it was tough to get around her while holding the camera. AN and I grabbed a six-dollar beer, and then we headed back down, after having only spent about a half our in the needle (there isn't much to see). There being no time for supper, we headed straight to the Key Arena, the home of the Supersonics, which wasn't far. Once inside, we found our seats and then headed to the concession stands. Beer was $3.50! We each got a beer, and I decided to try a lumberjack-style sandwich with dipping sauce and potato salad. It cost $10 and it was pretty mediocre. EVERY ONE of the concession employees looked like they'd done a bit of time at one point or another. I half expected my sandwich to be poisoned, and I haven't yet built tolerances up to the key ones.
We sat down to the game. It started quickly, with the Dallas Maverick's star player getting knocked out early and the Sonics building a huge lead. However, beyond the first quarter, the game was a veritible dud, with mediocre play and little entertainment value. We even found out that the beer prices were the half-price prices. We did enjoy watching a remote-controlled Bud Light blimp that would sail around dropping free tickets to future games, and the team mascot actually jumped something like 18 Pepsi trucks with a motorbike (a la Evel Knievel) - the gag was that they were toy trucks. Some world champion BMX bike riders put on a pretty good show. We also took great pleasure out of the video montages for pumping the crowd up - which featured the word "NOISE" being shaken about followed by increasingly quickly-cut videos of the star players clapping. We managed to stay awake to the end of the game, only to see the Sonics lose. After the game, we headed back to the hotel and hit the hay, as it was quite late. We did have a bit of fun not finding the car in the rain.
On Thursday, the good folks at our company decided that because there was no more organized training to do, it would be a good idea for AN and I to do some actual work. We spent the first three-quarters of the day getting AN's system installed to the point where we could actually start working (my system, having an old, non-updatable copy of Windows XP, was useless). We managed to get a bit of dummy data to show up on one screen, and we were done. We went back to the hotel to wait for C-GW, as we were to have dinner that evening at seven. He called and said he'd be by to pick us up at 6:15, but AN and I were still able to sneak in most of the Jackass 2 movie AN had downloaded. There isn't much to say about it - it's just about a bunch of guys who go around thinking of crazy and dangerous things they can do to themselves. Some of them got seriously hurt, and some were still hurt from the first movie.
We had dinner at an upscale Italian place up the street from our hotel. It had been recommended time after time by B-SM and others at B. The first thing C-GW did was order a drink neither of us had ever heard of before (apparently, he likes his liquor). AN and I ordered Italian beers, and we got quite a "what the fuck are you doing" stare from C-GW. I think we were supposed to order cognac, or some kind of wine from 1756. Anyway, we had a couple of drinks and chatted about numerous topics before ordering. C-GW seemed to be a typical American ass. He talked about getting the "Indians" out of his state (MA), and how the people of WA had failed to do so. He made some crack about lining them up so you could kill them with one bullet. He also talked about the problems with Canada (and with the US to be fair). Then he recounted his 9/11 story, as he had worked within a few hundred feet of the twin towers. AN and I talked about our pasts, most of which we'd shared through school, our student company, more school and work at A.
We finally ordered, and I wound up with a mediocre chicken dish. AN had what he described as a good steak, cooked to perfection. I forget what C-GW had, except that he had clams as a starter - we all shared them, and they were delicious. AN ordered calamari, and we all agreed that it was terrble. So overall, the appetizers were okay. We had a couple of more drinks before wrapping up. The bill came to $190, and C-GW's company picked up the tab. It was a fun night, more so than I'd expected because C-GW was a pretty animated talker, and he got going pretty good on a few occasions (one being the Indian rant).
We found out that day that the "boss" had given everyone at the company Friday off. We had been told on the way out the door that we should continue working on our assigned tasks - we could then let everyone know what we'd gotten done. Fortunately, C-GW told us to forget all that and just drive to Mt. Rainier. And drive there we did! Well, not that night.
We got up super early Friday morning in preparation for our return trip the next day (with a flight leaving at six in the morning). We had a quick breakfast and hit the road for Mt. Ranier. The clouds magically parted as we drew near, with the sky becoming almost perfectly clear at our nearest approach. The landscape changed rapidly from bustling city (in the midst of Christmas anarchy) to hick towns. The city was more bustling and the towns more hick than any in Nova Scotia. It was a dramatic change. We could see the mountain occasionally as we approached it. The trees were amazing - very tall and hanging over the road. There was no snow at first, but as we went up, there was more and more snow. It was very beautiful and we were very happy to have been there, except that we found that they'd closed the national park containing Rainier, so we had to turn back without getting close. We stopped on the way out at a lookoff point, and took some great pictures. The mountain was breathtaking, even from a distance.
We headed back into the city, blasing R&B and rap. It was funny, because we'd accidentally left an R&B radio station on while navigating early in the week, and it stuck. We started to enjoy the songs, especially their ludicrous lyrics and subject matter. They became a sort of theme to our adventures in Seattle. We couldn't change the station anymore - they were as much Seattle to us as anything else. We stopped at the "Super Mall" outside of Seattle. It really was super - it was massive , and it took us a long time just to walk it, only to buy nothing.
After the mall, we drove all the way to downtown Seattle (through traffic jams and accidents) to go to the Sci-Fi Museum, which, amusingly enough, is located at the base of the Space Needle. The museum was interesting, and it had quite a few items from Star Trek, including Captain Kirk's original chair, some uniforms, and many props. I took pictures of some of them even though pictures are not allowed. It's not as if they were enforcing anything, as we walked in without anyone even checking for our tickets. We'd beat the place to death after only forty-five minutes - a lot of it was devoted to literature and comics, for which we had little interest. Still, it was neat to see.
After the museum, we caught the monorail from the Space Needle to the mall we'd been to on Tuesday night. It was a fast and short ride, and I managed to lose my two-way ticket. We left the mall and walked down to the Market that had been closed on Tuesday - fortunately it was open - and it was amazing! There were hundreds of vendors, and it must've been miles long. There was every type of food you could imagine - and a lot more, I'm sure. There was art, crafts, building materials - EVERYTHING. The place was full of weird and wonderful people. It was very multicultural. We stopped into an old-looking tavern for dinner. The menu was six pages long, and all of the ingredients for the items came from market vendors. AN and I split a pitcher of local brew, and a large order of clams to start. AN had a salmon dish as his main course, and I had a spicy seafood/chicken/sausage paella. It was delicious.
After dinner, we walked back to the mall and caught the monorail back to the Space Needle. We walked back to the car and headed for Redmond, WA, the home of Microsoft. Unfortunately, we hadn't bothered to get directions any more specific than that. We took one of three Redmond exits, and drove along another highway before reaching the "downtown" area. There were no Microsoft signs and we had no idea where we were. We took a couple of turns and found ourselves going along a Bedford Highway-like road. About ten minutes in, and after we'd realized it was going to be a long way around the water, we decided to turn back. We did see a huge fenced in area surrounding several large buildings - I suppose that might have been Microsoft? AN later looked up the actual location, and, not surprisingly, we'd gotten pretty close.
After our random jaunt through Redmond, we headed for a liquor store close to our hotel. We got there just in time, and a rather sour employee warned us that we had to be out of the store (puchase paid for) in four minutes so she could go home. We checked out the rather high prices and decided to hold off until our trip home to get our liquor fix. Back to the hotel we went, liquorless. We agreed to meet the next morning at 3:30 AM in the lobby of the hotel. I went into my room and packed everything up so I'd be able to sleep in as late as possible. I was already preoccupied with getting to JW's Christmas party on time the next evening. I got to bed around nine, and slept until 3:18 AM the next morning.
At 3:27 AM, I'd gotten dressed and I headed downstairs with all my luggage. AN was there - he'd already checked out. I checked out, and we were on our way to the airport. AN had gotten directions, but we still managed to take a wrong turn, and it was five turns (and twenty minutes) later by the time we'd gotten back on track. We ditched the rental car and headed upstairs to check in. The line was huge, and we thought we were in trouble, but it turned out that we were in the wrong line because some other company was running our flight on a Continental plane - so the Continental lineup wasn't the right one. We tried to process our own tickets at the other company (Horizon I think), but again, as had happened on the trip to Seattle, the computer was unable to process our request. We waited for an eternity while the single ticket agent tried to solve another customer's problem. Finally, they were able to process us, and we headed to the security area. The line was again huge, and we were a little worried about catching our flight.
We passed all the ridiculous signs saying we couldn't have gels or sprays over three ounces - fortunately my nasal spray was only half an ounce! We also discovered toward the end that there was a much shorter line for people like us taking short flights to nearby destinations - Seattle to Portland in our case. Of course, the lack of proper signage, a constant barb in our respective backs, caused us to waste our time yet again. We went through the security area, and I put my shoes on top of my laptop, even though you're not supposed to (I learned this afterward). One of the guards called for a bag check on my bag. Another guard came over, after which they spent a few minutes trying to identify the bag they wanted to look at. They took it out of the machine a couple of times, ultimately putting it back in without even opening it.
Having cleared the security area, AN and I walked for about twenty minutes, without taking a wrong turn, to the proper gate, where we sat and waited. I blew my nose quite a bit, as I was still feeling fairly bad from my cold. As we boarded the plane, we presented our passes and got on. The funny part, as we later realized, is that we presented passes for the second leg of our flight - the Portland to Newark leg. I guess the Seattle airport personnel don't bother to look for the name "Seattle" when checking tickets, because it wasn't there :) They also didn't bother checking our passports. I'm now convinced that I could've gotten on that plane with an old ticket I'd saved, no problem. So much for increased security after 9/11!
The plane was very small - it actually had propellers on it, and it was the first time I'd been on such a plane. It was pretty loud, but otherwise it wasn't much different than the other planes I'd flown on. The flight was delayed by about thirty minutes, and we arrived in Portland twenty minutes late. AN and I both thought we had time to kill, but checking our passes soon had us racing through the airport to the next gate. We managed to take a wrong turn and walk about eight minutes in the wrong direction, before turning back. We ultimately got to the gate, where we didn't wait long for boarding. We used the same passes to board the flight we'd used to board the last flight, and we were off without too long a delay. I knew we had time to spare in Newark, so I wasn't overly concerned.
The second leg was very long - about five and a half hours in total. I didn't feel like I could waste it away trying to sleep as I'd done on the first leg, so I watched "Talladega Nights", as it was being shown (yes, I realize what I've just said - I didn't want to waste the time, but I did). The movie was mediocre and it had a few good laughs - it was enough to pass the time fairly quickly. It really seemed (to me anyway) to be poking fun at the American way of life. The plot was based on a line early in the film that went, "If you ain't first, you're last." The main character bases his entire life on this. He does everything he can to finish first. He treats other people like dirt when he becomes a superstar NASCAR driver. He wastes away his fortune on garbage he doesn't need. He is mean to other people, and he teaches his kids to be mean. When he crashes and loses his nerve, his wife leaves him because he isn't the best driver anymore. He does learn the folly of his ways at the end at least.
I can't seem to see the screen now, as I just stared at the sun to make sure it was still above the horizon :S I just checked again, and it's gone now. :( Oh well. I think my eyes have recovered enough. Anyway, after Talledega Nights, they showed a series of sitcoms. I decided to do a couple of sudokus, and I listened to some music. I wanted to do some reading, but I was too high strung and too excited about going home to focus. I was also pretty tired. The flight attendants served us a meal (an egg McMuffin like thing in a sealed package) and a couple of rounds of drinks to fill the rest of the time. The end of the flight was fun because I got to look at beautiful New York city over the insatiable bitch woman next to me. I saw the Statue of Liberty, and a hell of a lot of buildings, bridges, ball fields and water. The place is massive.
We landed, but this time we had about an hour and a half to kill before boarding our final leg. We foolishly (as it would turn out) decided that food was the first priority, so we scoured the airport, looking for a pub-like place with some meat. Having looked over the "entire" airport, we settled on a place that sort of fit the bill. We sat down at a table and waited for twenty minutes until the waitress didn't come. It turned out that the place was a serve-yourself type place, and we'd missed the counter. AN and I agreed that we didn't like the way the place was run (no table service), so we just left. We are very indecisive, and we do that sort of thing a lot. Even the smallest piss-off can make a decision for us. We wound up at a serve-yourself sub place (this time we were expecting it)! I had a pretty tasty soft taco-like thing, and a sub to boot. I also got a bag of chips and a mini loaf (that is now rotting on my microwave) for the trip home. I'd forgotten to save the receipts for a couple of meals, and so I felt like I should charge the company up, especially where this was going to be my only meal of the day.
We left the sub joint unsatisfied, but full. We wondered down to our waiting area, making sure we knew where it was, then went for a walk to kill time. As fate would have it, we discovered the other half of the airport! There were pub-like restuarants with meat galore, steakhouses aplenty. Each one made us sadder we'd eaten where we did than the last. We also found a duty free store, and decided it was time for liquor. The cruel hand of fate dealt us yet another blow, as we had arrived five minutes too late to get any alcohol. You have to get it one hour and fifteen minutes ahead of your departure time. As I would say, what a joke! AN and I, thoroughly defeated, lurched back to our departure gate, heads down - only to find a few minutes later that the flight had been delayed! Unfortunately, enough time had passed, and we wern't able to make it back to the store in time. Another forty-five minutes passed, and the flight got delayed again, and again there was not enough time to get our liquor! We were both furious. I was especially furious because I was starting to think that I would miss all of JW's party. I thought she would be sad if I didn't make it, and the thought of that was unbearable. I hadn't realized beforehand that, if the flight had been on time, I might've gotten in a fair bit of partying. I had thought that, regardless of how on time we were, I'd be arriving at the party fairly late. Chalk it up to a math error... a math error that made me very angry. I really wanted to make the party. I wanted to be a part of Christmas before it passed me by. I am not always a patient person, and the thought of wasting time away sitting in an airport had me stressed out worse than I'd been in years. My heart raced as I sat, waiting. The ticket agent made it worse by mistakenly announcing boarding for our flight, when he meant New Orleans. Then he did it again fifteen minutes later. People laughed. I told AN I thought he should be fired and then killed. I was too stressed out to realize the humour in the situation - to just relax and know that nothing really bad was going to happen if we were a bit late. Looking back on it, it seems silly that I'd gotten so wound up. I guess I was just really angry at my company for sending us, so close to Christmas, on a trip that was largely useless. I almost wanted us to be severely delayed, so that I could lay into them about how stupid they were when I got back. I wanted to tell them so.
I don't think I have the make-up of a good corporate citizen. I don't like talking business close to Christmas. I don't like it that people only get one or two days off for Christmas. I don't like it that people are expected to work overtime. I don't like it that people who don't buy into all of the corporate crap are left behind in the shuffle. I feel threatened by "eager beavers", willing to do whatever it takes to get ahead in the world - whatever it takes to get money. I don't want to do that. I just want to enjoy life. I want to experience life. I can't do that while I'm working. I want to have a wife and kids - I want to experience that. I want to travel around the world and experience life as other people experience it. I can't be afraid of breaking down communication barriers, afraid of what people might think of me. I think I need to do something that means something - something that I can take a step back from and say, "I've made a difference." I want to be proud to be me. I know I've gotten horribly sidetracked here, but the words are just coming out and there was no point in stopping!
Anyway, I'm going to continue on with the week's events despite a terribly strong desire to analyze my life! So yes, eventually the final leg of our flight, from Newark to Halifax, took off. I spent the bulk of it trying to watch a DVD commentary, but I couldn't get the volume up high enough to hear all the words. I guess my cheap headphones aren't any good with a laptop. I gave up and pretty much vegged out (stewed?) until we landed. Of course, AN and I were in the last row, and that made me furious. Then, being the last ones off, we wound up being last in the customs line, and that made me furious. My fury was tempered by fast moving lines, and the realization that I probably would catch part of JW's party. I was feeling better. We got through customs, only to find that our bags had been lost. Well, not lost, just removed from the plane for weight balance. I was so happy they'd picked our bags for that honour. Fortunately, there was an attendent right there to tell us this, so we didn't have to sit around waiting for an hour as I'd done the last time this happened (my last trip). We filled out some forms and met Dad in the airport. I wouldn't even let him go bring the car to the door to pick us up and save us getting wet in the rain. I insisted that we walk, and walk we did! My Dad offered to let me drive, and I gladly took the keys.
We raced back into town. I was unwilling to waste even a minute. I was determined to get to JW's at a decent time. We drove to my parents' house, transferred to Mum's car (AN and I), and I drove AN home. I then raced down to JW's. My arrival there cut the first slit into this massive balloon of stress inside my head (does that read badly, or what?). JW and I hugged for a while - it was great. I had really missed her. I think I sort of felt like I was being left behind when I was away - everyone's lives continued on, but mine seemed to be at a standstill. My focus all week was getting back, so that I could continue to live. I think I mellowed out a bit toward the end of the week, when AN and I did indeed live a little, and I think I'll be better on future trips. But I think I'll always have this feeling that I'm going to miss something in the lives of the people important to me. Then of course, I'd feel guilty that I wasn't there. Well, I was very happy that I'd made JW's party. I would've hated to have missed it. It was sad, though, that some of the guests had gone home, as it was past eleven. I had missed something, but seeing JW made me feel better.
The party was fun, while it lasted. There were some fun stories told, and some good laughs had. There was great food that JW and I would enjoy for several more days. The party ended just after twelve, and JW and I went to bed. We were both incredibly tired, but I couldn't sleep. I was still wired from my trip, and from the time change.
We woke up quite early, and neither of us could get back to sleep. It was Christmas Eve, and JW and I wasted our time in bed just being. Finally, she broke down and called her brother to come for her, as we both had big days ahead of us and we couldn't afford to be lazing about. In classic JW style, her period started at almost the precise moment she discovered she'd lost her father's cell phone. In a scene of comedic terror, she cried and shrieked while on the toilet trying to insert her Diva cup. She counted aloud the number of times the cup failed to go in properly - the entire neighbourhood was getting a lesson in numbers. Then, just as the last of her neighbours had fled to the bomb shelter, it went in. JW emerged from the washroom, victorious, before beginning again to look for her phone. I decided that the going was good, and so I took off, to leave JW in her brother's capable hands. There wasn't much I could do about her phone, except offer up my Dad's identical phone that he'd apparently trashed years ago (as I later discovered). Fortunately, she soon after discovered that the phone had fallen out of her pocket into her friend's car.
I left JW's and went home to effectively move some of my clothes from one suitcase to another - I always spend the evenings of the 24th and 25th at my parents' house. I got a call from the airline - my bag was to be delivered that afternoon. I wrapped presents and waited around for it to be delivered. When it came, I wrapped the presents within and finished packing my other suitcase. I left as soon as I was ready, arriving at my parents' house just in time to leave to pick up my grandmother. We brought her to my aunt's house, where we always go for Christmas Eve. We used to go to church beforehand, but that had ended when it became too difficult for my grandfather to get to the church. It didn't start up again after he died. My aunt still went to church later that evening, but no one else did.
The food on Christmas Eve seems to be the same every year, but it's good. We ate quite a bit, took some pictures, and had a drink. My aunt's boyfriend and his son arrived later. As usual, the boyfriend grilled me about my personal life, taking great interest in my answers (I generally throw a comedic light over everything when speaking with him, and he is always surprised to hear my candid, though sometimes exhaggerated answers). By half past seven, my grandmother was tired (I was probably more tired), so we packed up and headed out. As is traditional on Christmas Eve, we drove through Fairview to look at the lights. My parents spoke of a house in Fall River (I think) they used to go to see many years ago. They compared it to a house in Fairview well known for its lights. There were models everywhere, blow up orbs with snow in them, moving parts and of course literally thousands of lights. There are many houses in the area that are nicely decorated - it seems like they inspire each other to do more, as I've never seen a part of town with more lights.
After the show, my parents dropped my grandmother off at her place, and then me at ours. They continued on to another party put on by friends. I usually go, in part for the great food (the most seafoody seafood chowder in existence), but this year I was much too tired. I layed on the couch, watching some old golf event. I fell asleep on the couch, which is unheard of for me, waking up after the event had ended. There wasn't much else on TV, but I stayed up to say goodnight to my parents on Christmas Eve. I finally did get to bed around midnight, and again I couldn't sleep because of the time change, but also due to the windows blowing loudly in the wind. I finally got up and closed the windows, and angrily drifted off to sleep.
I'm currently listening to: "Triad", from "Lateralus", by "Tool".
Movies watched this week: "Jackass 2", "Talladega Nights"
The Seattle trip was at times fun and at times annoying and stressful. It tended to be more fun the later in the trip it got, and it was annoying and stressful at both ends (due to travel). Monday was a bit scary, because AN and I went to our first day of training. We had no idea what to expect - it could've been anything from a class of thirty people listening to a lecturer, to the two of us sitting down with an ordinary worker being quizzed on things we didn't know. Fortunately, training turned out to be in a small classroom setting. There was a key person attending, and the training had been reorganized at the last minute to fit their schedule. AN and I, as well as a few others, were merely observers, while this person got what they needed. The day passed quite slowly, especially as the lecturer continually got stuck trying to complete simple programming tasks for the program he was demonstrating. He also was constantly interrupted by a loud-mouth ass in the back of the room (his boss) whenever the ass felt a comment was vague or incomplete. The ass proceeded to shout and make phone calls for much of the day. The end of the day was great, with three of the top dogs in the room pitted against each other in verbal combat. It was really quite entertaining, as they went around in circles, trying to convince each other of things the rest of the room had long since understood. Of course, AN and I had nothing to contribute.
AN and I were very tired Monday, as neither of us had slept very well after all the travel. After work, we ducked into a nearby Thai restaurant, ate huge, tasty meals (mine was a spicy coconut soup and salmon in rice with peanut/coconut sauce). We were later told that we'd eaten in the worst Thai restaurant in town. After the restaurant, we took a short drive up and down the main street next to the hotel - all we could find was strip mall after strip mall, each with the requisite tanning salon, hair/nail studio, pharmacy, pet store, grocery and ice cream hut. After the eighth such mall, we got discouraged and turned back. We said our goodnights, and I hit the sack around nine local time.
On Tuesday, the training continued, only it was even more focused on the key person. He asked dozens of questions, but with a new instructor that day, the answers seemed to make sense, and they came without undue effort. The day was extremely boring for AN and I, as we learned very little. The time dragged on for an eternity, and only occasional short chats with JW kept me from going completely insane. After work, C-GW (our supervisor in Seattle) asked us if we could entertain ourselves for the evening, to which AN and I did not reply, as we were already pulling out of the parking lot.
We drove straight downtown to do a bit of shopping. The ride downtown took about forty-five minutes, as our hotel was quite a bit north of the downtown core. The traffic was bad, and in fact it was bad right through the entire week. We arrived downtown and parked at the garage nearest the highway. I had looked up the area on the Internet, and I knew it had several large malls. We walked around aimlessly, neither of us really sure of what we were looking for. We managed to spend only seven minutes in a huge Macy's - we kept thinking we should go into such stores, but then we would realize that we wern't shopping for ourselves, so we'd leave. We tried to eat at one restaurant in the first mall, but in typical AN and LW style, we simply would not wait the twenty minutes necessary to get a table. We wondered to the next mall, where I bought several gifts. I bought JW a little drum made by the native people of the area, and an African percussion instrument at a nice African store. I also got miscellaneous t-shirts, shot glasses and mugs to say I'd been to Seattle. We left the second mall and walked toward a large neon sign that eventually said "Market". We got excited that it might have lots of potential gifts, but it had closed hours earlier. We turned around and walked back; there were poor and homeless people everywhere, and it was apparent that only a short distance separated them from the rich and well-to-do at the malls. We found ourselves starving and back at the second mall again. We went upstairs to the monorail that takes one to the Space Needle, near to where we had parked. Of course, the monorail had stopped running, so we broke down and bought ourselves lousy dinners at the food court nearby.
After the food, we meandered back to the car and headed back. Again, we both went to sleep pretty early. I had gotten a cold that day, and I was starting to feel pretty bad by the end of the day.
I'm going to stop here for now, as I have a party to get to. I'll try to write the rest soon. Party on.
It's two days later, and I'm back now. Where was I? Oh yeah, I'm on to Wednesday now. On Wednesday, AN and I finally felt like we were getting somewhere as our star pupil had departed, and the training refocused on us. We actually used our computers to do things - we installed the product we were being trained on and played around with it a bit. The slightly incompetent instructor had returned, and again there were many hold-ups and hang-ups, but we learned some. We had pizza at lunch and I talked to JW when I could. My cold was REALLY bad and it was making everything else seem worse. The passing of the midpoint of our trip made me feel a bit better.
After work, AN and I were again left to fend for ourselves. We decided to go catch a Supersonics basketball game. We drove straight downtown after work, and parked next to the Space Needle again. We decided to "get the needle over with", so we went up for fourteen dollars each. The top part of it was small and nicely decorated. I took several pictures, and I even took a video during which I walked around the entire circumference of the observation deck - it was kind of funny because I got stuck behind a slow kid, and it was tough to get around her while holding the camera. AN and I grabbed a six-dollar beer, and then we headed back down, after having only spent about a half our in the needle (there isn't much to see). There being no time for supper, we headed straight to the Key Arena, the home of the Supersonics, which wasn't far. Once inside, we found our seats and then headed to the concession stands. Beer was $3.50! We each got a beer, and I decided to try a lumberjack-style sandwich with dipping sauce and potato salad. It cost $10 and it was pretty mediocre. EVERY ONE of the concession employees looked like they'd done a bit of time at one point or another. I half expected my sandwich to be poisoned, and I haven't yet built tolerances up to the key ones.
We sat down to the game. It started quickly, with the Dallas Maverick's star player getting knocked out early and the Sonics building a huge lead. However, beyond the first quarter, the game was a veritible dud, with mediocre play and little entertainment value. We even found out that the beer prices were the half-price prices. We did enjoy watching a remote-controlled Bud Light blimp that would sail around dropping free tickets to future games, and the team mascot actually jumped something like 18 Pepsi trucks with a motorbike (a la Evel Knievel) - the gag was that they were toy trucks. Some world champion BMX bike riders put on a pretty good show. We also took great pleasure out of the video montages for pumping the crowd up - which featured the word "NOISE" being shaken about followed by increasingly quickly-cut videos of the star players clapping. We managed to stay awake to the end of the game, only to see the Sonics lose. After the game, we headed back to the hotel and hit the hay, as it was quite late. We did have a bit of fun not finding the car in the rain.
On Thursday, the good folks at our company decided that because there was no more organized training to do, it would be a good idea for AN and I to do some actual work. We spent the first three-quarters of the day getting AN's system installed to the point where we could actually start working (my system, having an old, non-updatable copy of Windows XP, was useless). We managed to get a bit of dummy data to show up on one screen, and we were done. We went back to the hotel to wait for C-GW, as we were to have dinner that evening at seven. He called and said he'd be by to pick us up at 6:15, but AN and I were still able to sneak in most of the Jackass 2 movie AN had downloaded. There isn't much to say about it - it's just about a bunch of guys who go around thinking of crazy and dangerous things they can do to themselves. Some of them got seriously hurt, and some were still hurt from the first movie.
We had dinner at an upscale Italian place up the street from our hotel. It had been recommended time after time by B-SM and others at B. The first thing C-GW did was order a drink neither of us had ever heard of before (apparently, he likes his liquor). AN and I ordered Italian beers, and we got quite a "what the fuck are you doing" stare from C-GW. I think we were supposed to order cognac, or some kind of wine from 1756. Anyway, we had a couple of drinks and chatted about numerous topics before ordering. C-GW seemed to be a typical American ass. He talked about getting the "Indians" out of his state (MA), and how the people of WA had failed to do so. He made some crack about lining them up so you could kill them with one bullet. He also talked about the problems with Canada (and with the US to be fair). Then he recounted his 9/11 story, as he had worked within a few hundred feet of the twin towers. AN and I talked about our pasts, most of which we'd shared through school, our student company, more school and work at A.
We finally ordered, and I wound up with a mediocre chicken dish. AN had what he described as a good steak, cooked to perfection. I forget what C-GW had, except that he had clams as a starter - we all shared them, and they were delicious. AN ordered calamari, and we all agreed that it was terrble. So overall, the appetizers were okay. We had a couple of more drinks before wrapping up. The bill came to $190, and C-GW's company picked up the tab. It was a fun night, more so than I'd expected because C-GW was a pretty animated talker, and he got going pretty good on a few occasions (one being the Indian rant).
We found out that day that the "boss" had given everyone at the company Friday off. We had been told on the way out the door that we should continue working on our assigned tasks - we could then let everyone know what we'd gotten done. Fortunately, C-GW told us to forget all that and just drive to Mt. Rainier. And drive there we did! Well, not that night.
We got up super early Friday morning in preparation for our return trip the next day (with a flight leaving at six in the morning). We had a quick breakfast and hit the road for Mt. Ranier. The clouds magically parted as we drew near, with the sky becoming almost perfectly clear at our nearest approach. The landscape changed rapidly from bustling city (in the midst of Christmas anarchy) to hick towns. The city was more bustling and the towns more hick than any in Nova Scotia. It was a dramatic change. We could see the mountain occasionally as we approached it. The trees were amazing - very tall and hanging over the road. There was no snow at first, but as we went up, there was more and more snow. It was very beautiful and we were very happy to have been there, except that we found that they'd closed the national park containing Rainier, so we had to turn back without getting close. We stopped on the way out at a lookoff point, and took some great pictures. The mountain was breathtaking, even from a distance.
We headed back into the city, blasing R&B and rap. It was funny, because we'd accidentally left an R&B radio station on while navigating early in the week, and it stuck. We started to enjoy the songs, especially their ludicrous lyrics and subject matter. They became a sort of theme to our adventures in Seattle. We couldn't change the station anymore - they were as much Seattle to us as anything else. We stopped at the "Super Mall" outside of Seattle. It really was super - it was massive , and it took us a long time just to walk it, only to buy nothing.
After the mall, we drove all the way to downtown Seattle (through traffic jams and accidents) to go to the Sci-Fi Museum, which, amusingly enough, is located at the base of the Space Needle. The museum was interesting, and it had quite a few items from Star Trek, including Captain Kirk's original chair, some uniforms, and many props. I took pictures of some of them even though pictures are not allowed. It's not as if they were enforcing anything, as we walked in without anyone even checking for our tickets. We'd beat the place to death after only forty-five minutes - a lot of it was devoted to literature and comics, for which we had little interest. Still, it was neat to see.
After the museum, we caught the monorail from the Space Needle to the mall we'd been to on Tuesday night. It was a fast and short ride, and I managed to lose my two-way ticket. We left the mall and walked down to the Market that had been closed on Tuesday - fortunately it was open - and it was amazing! There were hundreds of vendors, and it must've been miles long. There was every type of food you could imagine - and a lot more, I'm sure. There was art, crafts, building materials - EVERYTHING. The place was full of weird and wonderful people. It was very multicultural. We stopped into an old-looking tavern for dinner. The menu was six pages long, and all of the ingredients for the items came from market vendors. AN and I split a pitcher of local brew, and a large order of clams to start. AN had a salmon dish as his main course, and I had a spicy seafood/chicken/sausage paella. It was delicious.
After dinner, we walked back to the mall and caught the monorail back to the Space Needle. We walked back to the car and headed for Redmond, WA, the home of Microsoft. Unfortunately, we hadn't bothered to get directions any more specific than that. We took one of three Redmond exits, and drove along another highway before reaching the "downtown" area. There were no Microsoft signs and we had no idea where we were. We took a couple of turns and found ourselves going along a Bedford Highway-like road. About ten minutes in, and after we'd realized it was going to be a long way around the water, we decided to turn back. We did see a huge fenced in area surrounding several large buildings - I suppose that might have been Microsoft? AN later looked up the actual location, and, not surprisingly, we'd gotten pretty close.
After our random jaunt through Redmond, we headed for a liquor store close to our hotel. We got there just in time, and a rather sour employee warned us that we had to be out of the store (puchase paid for) in four minutes so she could go home. We checked out the rather high prices and decided to hold off until our trip home to get our liquor fix. Back to the hotel we went, liquorless. We agreed to meet the next morning at 3:30 AM in the lobby of the hotel. I went into my room and packed everything up so I'd be able to sleep in as late as possible. I was already preoccupied with getting to JW's Christmas party on time the next evening. I got to bed around nine, and slept until 3:18 AM the next morning.
At 3:27 AM, I'd gotten dressed and I headed downstairs with all my luggage. AN was there - he'd already checked out. I checked out, and we were on our way to the airport. AN had gotten directions, but we still managed to take a wrong turn, and it was five turns (and twenty minutes) later by the time we'd gotten back on track. We ditched the rental car and headed upstairs to check in. The line was huge, and we thought we were in trouble, but it turned out that we were in the wrong line because some other company was running our flight on a Continental plane - so the Continental lineup wasn't the right one. We tried to process our own tickets at the other company (Horizon I think), but again, as had happened on the trip to Seattle, the computer was unable to process our request. We waited for an eternity while the single ticket agent tried to solve another customer's problem. Finally, they were able to process us, and we headed to the security area. The line was again huge, and we were a little worried about catching our flight.
We passed all the ridiculous signs saying we couldn't have gels or sprays over three ounces - fortunately my nasal spray was only half an ounce! We also discovered toward the end that there was a much shorter line for people like us taking short flights to nearby destinations - Seattle to Portland in our case. Of course, the lack of proper signage, a constant barb in our respective backs, caused us to waste our time yet again. We went through the security area, and I put my shoes on top of my laptop, even though you're not supposed to (I learned this afterward). One of the guards called for a bag check on my bag. Another guard came over, after which they spent a few minutes trying to identify the bag they wanted to look at. They took it out of the machine a couple of times, ultimately putting it back in without even opening it.
Having cleared the security area, AN and I walked for about twenty minutes, without taking a wrong turn, to the proper gate, where we sat and waited. I blew my nose quite a bit, as I was still feeling fairly bad from my cold. As we boarded the plane, we presented our passes and got on. The funny part, as we later realized, is that we presented passes for the second leg of our flight - the Portland to Newark leg. I guess the Seattle airport personnel don't bother to look for the name "Seattle" when checking tickets, because it wasn't there :) They also didn't bother checking our passports. I'm now convinced that I could've gotten on that plane with an old ticket I'd saved, no problem. So much for increased security after 9/11!
The plane was very small - it actually had propellers on it, and it was the first time I'd been on such a plane. It was pretty loud, but otherwise it wasn't much different than the other planes I'd flown on. The flight was delayed by about thirty minutes, and we arrived in Portland twenty minutes late. AN and I both thought we had time to kill, but checking our passes soon had us racing through the airport to the next gate. We managed to take a wrong turn and walk about eight minutes in the wrong direction, before turning back. We ultimately got to the gate, where we didn't wait long for boarding. We used the same passes to board the flight we'd used to board the last flight, and we were off without too long a delay. I knew we had time to spare in Newark, so I wasn't overly concerned.
The second leg was very long - about five and a half hours in total. I didn't feel like I could waste it away trying to sleep as I'd done on the first leg, so I watched "Talladega Nights", as it was being shown (yes, I realize what I've just said - I didn't want to waste the time, but I did). The movie was mediocre and it had a few good laughs - it was enough to pass the time fairly quickly. It really seemed (to me anyway) to be poking fun at the American way of life. The plot was based on a line early in the film that went, "If you ain't first, you're last." The main character bases his entire life on this. He does everything he can to finish first. He treats other people like dirt when he becomes a superstar NASCAR driver. He wastes away his fortune on garbage he doesn't need. He is mean to other people, and he teaches his kids to be mean. When he crashes and loses his nerve, his wife leaves him because he isn't the best driver anymore. He does learn the folly of his ways at the end at least.
I can't seem to see the screen now, as I just stared at the sun to make sure it was still above the horizon :S I just checked again, and it's gone now. :( Oh well. I think my eyes have recovered enough. Anyway, after Talledega Nights, they showed a series of sitcoms. I decided to do a couple of sudokus, and I listened to some music. I wanted to do some reading, but I was too high strung and too excited about going home to focus. I was also pretty tired. The flight attendants served us a meal (an egg McMuffin like thing in a sealed package) and a couple of rounds of drinks to fill the rest of the time. The end of the flight was fun because I got to look at beautiful New York city over the insatiable bitch woman next to me. I saw the Statue of Liberty, and a hell of a lot of buildings, bridges, ball fields and water. The place is massive.
We landed, but this time we had about an hour and a half to kill before boarding our final leg. We foolishly (as it would turn out) decided that food was the first priority, so we scoured the airport, looking for a pub-like place with some meat. Having looked over the "entire" airport, we settled on a place that sort of fit the bill. We sat down at a table and waited for twenty minutes until the waitress didn't come. It turned out that the place was a serve-yourself type place, and we'd missed the counter. AN and I agreed that we didn't like the way the place was run (no table service), so we just left. We are very indecisive, and we do that sort of thing a lot. Even the smallest piss-off can make a decision for us. We wound up at a serve-yourself sub place (this time we were expecting it)! I had a pretty tasty soft taco-like thing, and a sub to boot. I also got a bag of chips and a mini loaf (that is now rotting on my microwave) for the trip home. I'd forgotten to save the receipts for a couple of meals, and so I felt like I should charge the company up, especially where this was going to be my only meal of the day.
We left the sub joint unsatisfied, but full. We wondered down to our waiting area, making sure we knew where it was, then went for a walk to kill time. As fate would have it, we discovered the other half of the airport! There were pub-like restuarants with meat galore, steakhouses aplenty. Each one made us sadder we'd eaten where we did than the last. We also found a duty free store, and decided it was time for liquor. The cruel hand of fate dealt us yet another blow, as we had arrived five minutes too late to get any alcohol. You have to get it one hour and fifteen minutes ahead of your departure time. As I would say, what a joke! AN and I, thoroughly defeated, lurched back to our departure gate, heads down - only to find a few minutes later that the flight had been delayed! Unfortunately, enough time had passed, and we wern't able to make it back to the store in time. Another forty-five minutes passed, and the flight got delayed again, and again there was not enough time to get our liquor! We were both furious. I was especially furious because I was starting to think that I would miss all of JW's party. I thought she would be sad if I didn't make it, and the thought of that was unbearable. I hadn't realized beforehand that, if the flight had been on time, I might've gotten in a fair bit of partying. I had thought that, regardless of how on time we were, I'd be arriving at the party fairly late. Chalk it up to a math error... a math error that made me very angry. I really wanted to make the party. I wanted to be a part of Christmas before it passed me by. I am not always a patient person, and the thought of wasting time away sitting in an airport had me stressed out worse than I'd been in years. My heart raced as I sat, waiting. The ticket agent made it worse by mistakenly announcing boarding for our flight, when he meant New Orleans. Then he did it again fifteen minutes later. People laughed. I told AN I thought he should be fired and then killed. I was too stressed out to realize the humour in the situation - to just relax and know that nothing really bad was going to happen if we were a bit late. Looking back on it, it seems silly that I'd gotten so wound up. I guess I was just really angry at my company for sending us, so close to Christmas, on a trip that was largely useless. I almost wanted us to be severely delayed, so that I could lay into them about how stupid they were when I got back. I wanted to tell them so.
I don't think I have the make-up of a good corporate citizen. I don't like talking business close to Christmas. I don't like it that people only get one or two days off for Christmas. I don't like it that people are expected to work overtime. I don't like it that people who don't buy into all of the corporate crap are left behind in the shuffle. I feel threatened by "eager beavers", willing to do whatever it takes to get ahead in the world - whatever it takes to get money. I don't want to do that. I just want to enjoy life. I want to experience life. I can't do that while I'm working. I want to have a wife and kids - I want to experience that. I want to travel around the world and experience life as other people experience it. I can't be afraid of breaking down communication barriers, afraid of what people might think of me. I think I need to do something that means something - something that I can take a step back from and say, "I've made a difference." I want to be proud to be me. I know I've gotten horribly sidetracked here, but the words are just coming out and there was no point in stopping!
Anyway, I'm going to continue on with the week's events despite a terribly strong desire to analyze my life! So yes, eventually the final leg of our flight, from Newark to Halifax, took off. I spent the bulk of it trying to watch a DVD commentary, but I couldn't get the volume up high enough to hear all the words. I guess my cheap headphones aren't any good with a laptop. I gave up and pretty much vegged out (stewed?) until we landed. Of course, AN and I were in the last row, and that made me furious. Then, being the last ones off, we wound up being last in the customs line, and that made me furious. My fury was tempered by fast moving lines, and the realization that I probably would catch part of JW's party. I was feeling better. We got through customs, only to find that our bags had been lost. Well, not lost, just removed from the plane for weight balance. I was so happy they'd picked our bags for that honour. Fortunately, there was an attendent right there to tell us this, so we didn't have to sit around waiting for an hour as I'd done the last time this happened (my last trip). We filled out some forms and met Dad in the airport. I wouldn't even let him go bring the car to the door to pick us up and save us getting wet in the rain. I insisted that we walk, and walk we did! My Dad offered to let me drive, and I gladly took the keys.
We raced back into town. I was unwilling to waste even a minute. I was determined to get to JW's at a decent time. We drove to my parents' house, transferred to Mum's car (AN and I), and I drove AN home. I then raced down to JW's. My arrival there cut the first slit into this massive balloon of stress inside my head (does that read badly, or what?). JW and I hugged for a while - it was great. I had really missed her. I think I sort of felt like I was being left behind when I was away - everyone's lives continued on, but mine seemed to be at a standstill. My focus all week was getting back, so that I could continue to live. I think I mellowed out a bit toward the end of the week, when AN and I did indeed live a little, and I think I'll be better on future trips. But I think I'll always have this feeling that I'm going to miss something in the lives of the people important to me. Then of course, I'd feel guilty that I wasn't there. Well, I was very happy that I'd made JW's party. I would've hated to have missed it. It was sad, though, that some of the guests had gone home, as it was past eleven. I had missed something, but seeing JW made me feel better.
The party was fun, while it lasted. There were some fun stories told, and some good laughs had. There was great food that JW and I would enjoy for several more days. The party ended just after twelve, and JW and I went to bed. We were both incredibly tired, but I couldn't sleep. I was still wired from my trip, and from the time change.
We woke up quite early, and neither of us could get back to sleep. It was Christmas Eve, and JW and I wasted our time in bed just being. Finally, she broke down and called her brother to come for her, as we both had big days ahead of us and we couldn't afford to be lazing about. In classic JW style, her period started at almost the precise moment she discovered she'd lost her father's cell phone. In a scene of comedic terror, she cried and shrieked while on the toilet trying to insert her Diva cup. She counted aloud the number of times the cup failed to go in properly - the entire neighbourhood was getting a lesson in numbers. Then, just as the last of her neighbours had fled to the bomb shelter, it went in. JW emerged from the washroom, victorious, before beginning again to look for her phone. I decided that the going was good, and so I took off, to leave JW in her brother's capable hands. There wasn't much I could do about her phone, except offer up my Dad's identical phone that he'd apparently trashed years ago (as I later discovered). Fortunately, she soon after discovered that the phone had fallen out of her pocket into her friend's car.
I left JW's and went home to effectively move some of my clothes from one suitcase to another - I always spend the evenings of the 24th and 25th at my parents' house. I got a call from the airline - my bag was to be delivered that afternoon. I wrapped presents and waited around for it to be delivered. When it came, I wrapped the presents within and finished packing my other suitcase. I left as soon as I was ready, arriving at my parents' house just in time to leave to pick up my grandmother. We brought her to my aunt's house, where we always go for Christmas Eve. We used to go to church beforehand, but that had ended when it became too difficult for my grandfather to get to the church. It didn't start up again after he died. My aunt still went to church later that evening, but no one else did.
The food on Christmas Eve seems to be the same every year, but it's good. We ate quite a bit, took some pictures, and had a drink. My aunt's boyfriend and his son arrived later. As usual, the boyfriend grilled me about my personal life, taking great interest in my answers (I generally throw a comedic light over everything when speaking with him, and he is always surprised to hear my candid, though sometimes exhaggerated answers). By half past seven, my grandmother was tired (I was probably more tired), so we packed up and headed out. As is traditional on Christmas Eve, we drove through Fairview to look at the lights. My parents spoke of a house in Fall River (I think) they used to go to see many years ago. They compared it to a house in Fairview well known for its lights. There were models everywhere, blow up orbs with snow in them, moving parts and of course literally thousands of lights. There are many houses in the area that are nicely decorated - it seems like they inspire each other to do more, as I've never seen a part of town with more lights.
After the show, my parents dropped my grandmother off at her place, and then me at ours. They continued on to another party put on by friends. I usually go, in part for the great food (the most seafoody seafood chowder in existence), but this year I was much too tired. I layed on the couch, watching some old golf event. I fell asleep on the couch, which is unheard of for me, waking up after the event had ended. There wasn't much else on TV, but I stayed up to say goodnight to my parents on Christmas Eve. I finally did get to bed around midnight, and again I couldn't sleep because of the time change, but also due to the windows blowing loudly in the wind. I finally got up and closed the windows, and angrily drifted off to sleep.
I'm currently listening to: "Triad", from "Lateralus", by "Tool".
Movies watched this week: "Jackass 2", "Talladega Nights"
Monday, December 18, 2006
1455 - It's a Wonderful Duck
Well, I'm a day late writing about this past week. I'm also in Seattle now, so I'm finding it difficult to think about what happened, as so many things are going on. I don't think I did a whole lot on Monday, though I distincly remember being very busy every night of the week. I think actually I worked on some Christmas items for JW. On Tuesday I went to JW's to hang out. We watched a comedy entitled, "Wonder Boy", which was about a college English professor who in writing his second novel found himself off course and unable to finish it. It was also about one of his students, a literarary genius hanging onto the freyed ends of society. Unsurprisingly, the professor was saved when his novel blew away in a gust of wind, and the student had his first work published shortly after. The movie was quite funny, especially the language in use - I always find the language entertaining when literary types are involved. There was an interesting sequence in which several characters sit around coming up with a possible description of a stranger's life. It turns out later on that the professor's car is in fact owned by the stranger, and when he steals his car back, he also steals a jacket worn by Marilyn Monroe, which the professor goes to great lengths to get back. It's owner is his girlfriend, whose dog his student shoots early in the film. Anyway, JW and I enjoyed the movie and then each other's company before getting a few hours' sleep.
On Wednesday after work I went shopping with my father for my mother. Our morale was low, and we only found a few candles in an entire mall. I also got my first haircut in over four months, though it was only a little off the top. It was entertaining, especially after I could see my stylist getting annoyed with how quiet I was (until she pointed it out). Even better, there was an extremely old woman who could barely stand getting her hair done. The stylists had to yell at her as she was quite deaf, and they spoke (yelled) to her as if she was three years old. After the mall, I went home and got little more done.
On Thursday, JW and I repeated the events of Tuesday. This time, we watched another movie with the word "Boy" in the title, called "About a Boy", or "About a Duck" as JW likes to call it. This movie starred Hugh Grant as an incredibly shallow bachelor with no job and no long term girlfriends. While pursuing his latest challenge, he meets a woman who is friends with a depressed mother of a boy who is severely bullied at school because of the way he has been raised by his mother. The boy becomes attached to Grant, and they help each other solve their respective problems. The highlight of the movie is a scene where the boy gets tired of throwing bits of bread at ducks, and so he hucks the entire loaf into the pond, killing one of the ducks. When park security questions the boy about the dead duck, Grant explains that the boy was merely trying to "sink the body" as it was disturbing the baby of his mother's friend. It's much funnier to watch than it is to read about, especially when described by me. I found this to be the better of the two boy movies.
On Friday, I finished up several projects at work in preparation for my big trip to Seattle. After work, I went to TA's, where we put back a few brews while watching ultimate fighting. The evening was pretty much useless, and I went home fairly early very tired. On Saturday, I slept in quite late, then got up to visit my grandmother before leaving the next day. After that, I wrapped a few Christmas presents, and then I packed for the trip. I had just sat down to waste the time away watching TV, when JW called, having finished up her chores. I went over to her place, where we listened to Christmas music and decorated her tree. It was the widest, most misshapen tree I'd ever seen, and thousands of decorations barely covered its immense surface. It still looked sparse afterward. JW and I were not able to reach the far side of the tree, as we did not have the proper supplies available for such a long journey. It was fun to decorate the tree - it made me feel good that I was getting my Christmas fix, but also bad that I'd be missing much more of it because of my trip. I really like to be with my family and friends before and during Christmas, and I was being robbed of the entire week before Christmas. I would come back from my trip and be thrust into Christmas, and of course it would be over just two short days later. However, my employers agreed to give me the week between Christmas and New Year's off to compensate for the large amounts of travel and the timing of the trip. I'm sure that time will be great, but Christmas will be over.
JW and I went to Jack Astor's after the tree lighting ceremony. We both got a thai curry dish that we agreed was excellent, though the price had been raised to almost $15. We also had nachos that were pretty good - however, our main dishes arrived after we'd finished only a third of the nachos. The food was tasty, but the extremely high prices (completely unjustified) and the poor service will make me think twice before I go to bed. Apparently I'm tired, because I didn't mean to write that just now :) I meant to say "before I go back". Anyway, our trip to the business park also took us to a huge scrapbooking store - a great black hole of worthless items to be used in worthless pursuits. At least they say there is something interesting at the other end of a real black hole - no such luck in this case. After the business park, we headed back down to JW's, where our Christmas mood and abundance of time (what?) led us to watch the Christmas classic, "It's a Wonderful Life". We both had already seen the movie - in fact, it was one of the few movies ever to grab my attention during channel surfing and keep it for over two hours! I find something appealing about society in the earlier parts of the twentieth century - people were respectful of one another (always addressing one another by title, always willing to lend a helpful hand, always knowing others by name), respectful of their appearance (wearing suits and hats to work) and just plain good and pure. The feeling is kind of like the one I got at church last week. Of course, it's likely that there were far more things wrong with the world at that time than there are now.
On Sunday morning, JW and I lazed about before I headed off to the airport to begin what turned out to be a lengthy journey! I thought I might feel worse than I did about parting, but I got through it pretty well. I mean, it's only six days (well, seven if the airlines are airlines come Saturday), and I was excited about the trip in general (even though I wished I wasn't going). We left for the airport at 11:45am. The first leg of the flight took us to Toronto, where we had lunch/dinner before heading for Denver. Our flight to Denver was almost an hour late, and the final leg of our flight was due to depart as we were still taxi-ing (is that a real word?) into the terminal! AN and I began to get excited about the prospect of spending the night in Denver, as we hoped to punish our employers for booking flights so close together. I mean, they did book us on two flights only fifty minutes apart. Anyway, as luck would have it, the third leg was delayed by over two hours, and in fact we had plenty of time (and our bags). The Denver airport was massive, as it is apparently one of the biggest ones in the US given its central location. We could see a huge structure nearby with an odd white, pointy roof - clearly some important landmark we knew nothing about. We sat in a sports bar and had a local brew, after which we boarded the plane. Somehow, the pilots managed to cut down the flight time by almost a third - I guess they can just go faster if they need to? We left two and a half hours late, and arrived one and a half hours late.
I had brought quite a bit to do on the flights. A book (Catch 22), a book of Sudoku's, my mp3 player, and the computer. On the first leg, I did several easy sudokus before getting cocky and trying a "very hard" one, which I didn't come close to finishing. I also listened to a few tunes. I was already too tired to read. The second leg was aboard a newer plane, and they had a TV in the back of every seat. I watched The Illusionist first, despite being very tempted to watch A Scanner Darkly or Little Miss Sunshine (again). There were also several JW-like movies (ones I would watch with her) - African life movies, Lady in the Water and others. I settled on The Illusionist as I hadn't seen it and wasn't likely to see it with anyone else in the near future. It was pretty good. Set in Russia a hundred years ago give or take a bit, it featured a magician and Russia's crown prince. The magician had been a lover of the prince's bride to be in childhood, but they had been torn apart due to their societal classes (what else is new?). During a performance attended by the prince, the magician again meets his lover on stage. They meet in person afterward, and they immediately discover that their feelings still exist for one another. The girl tells the prince outright that she is leaving him for the magician (or illusionist), and the prince kills her shortly after. Then, the illusionist engages in a battle against the prince using his magic - he somehow creates illusions of the deceased on stage, and he soon has the commoners rallying behind him. When his "ghosts" begin to touch upon the fact that the prince had killed the girl (a fact hidden by the prince and his loyal chief of police), the audience begins to question whether the prince is innocent, and they begin move against the prince. The illusionist is motivated to have the prince removed from power because of the nature of this plans reveiled to him by the girl before her death. In his final act, the illusionist himself disappears from the stage. The chief of police then undergoes a revelation, as he pieces together all that he has seen and realizes that the crown prince had indeed committed the murder. He goes to confront the prince, which leads to the prince committing suicide as he realizes he cannot win. Then, the chief sees the illusionist on the street, but is unable to catch up to him. The movie ends with a series of flashbacks during which the chief realizes that everything the illusionist had done was in fact an illusion, including the illusions he had produced on stage. He had used his powers of illusion to have the prince removed from power, complete with the faking of the girl's death, the faking of spirits from beyond the grave and the planting of evidence.
I found the movie to be very unique and I enjoyed it. It starred Edward Norton, and I find that I have liked quite a few of his movies recently. He played the illusionist very well. After the movie, I watched about three-quarters of a documentary on heavy metal. It was Canadian made. It was enlightening, but not as good as I'd hoped. It focused on the history of metal, its impact on society, the devotion of its fans, and on some darker topics. There was a bit about the Norwegian (sp?) black metal bands, where it is believed that the members truly believe in their lyrics (whereas it was pointed out that most metal lyrics are written for shock value and to question society). Apparently a lead of one of the most popular groups murdered another band lead in addition to burning down a historic church. In jail, he was interviewed as saying that he regretted nothing, and that he is merely trying to loosen the grip that Christianity has on the throat of the world. Many of the artists interviewed referred to Christanity as the worst type of brainwashing, and the one that does the most damage to society. One interesting line that I still recall went something like this: "It is very difficult to know what is good in the world. With religion, we strive to determine what is good, what God is and what God wants. But no one really knows what is good - which is the right path to follow. However, every one of us knows what is bad. We know what we're not supposed to do." I guess there isn't really any context here - I just thought it was interesting on the surface. I hope to catch the end of the documentary on our trip from Newark to Halifax on Saturday, as we will be on another one of the jets with the TVs. Maybe AN can finish Little Miss Sunshine (poor him).
I tried to sleep on the third leg, but I couldn't. I kept opening my eyes to see whether drinks were being served, or garbage collected. Then I would look at some small town far below. After arriving in Seattle, AN and I rented a car, as the person we were going to meet had long gone due to our delay. We managed to get a really nice car for a not really nice car price. On the way to the hotel, we passed numerous trees blown down, cars abandoned on the side of the road, ice patches and power outages (impossible to read signs). Apparently there had been a huge windstorm only days before, and eight people had died. Power was going to be out in some parts of the city for another week. We got to the hotel at 5:00am our time, and I got to sleep around 6. Our total trip time was 17 hours and 15 minutes, and I was awake for 23 hours in the end.
Well, I'm really tired again today because we didn't have time for much sleep. I have no idea how this entry has turned out - hopefully it is tolerable! I'm still stuffed full of Thai coconut food too :)
It is clear and cool (in Seattle). I am currently listening nothing because I don't have my freakin' mp3s. There's some bad movie on TV.
Movies watched this week: "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country", "Wonder Boy", "About a Boy", "It's a Wonderful Life", "The Illusionist"
On Wednesday after work I went shopping with my father for my mother. Our morale was low, and we only found a few candles in an entire mall. I also got my first haircut in over four months, though it was only a little off the top. It was entertaining, especially after I could see my stylist getting annoyed with how quiet I was (until she pointed it out). Even better, there was an extremely old woman who could barely stand getting her hair done. The stylists had to yell at her as she was quite deaf, and they spoke (yelled) to her as if she was three years old. After the mall, I went home and got little more done.
On Thursday, JW and I repeated the events of Tuesday. This time, we watched another movie with the word "Boy" in the title, called "About a Boy", or "About a Duck" as JW likes to call it. This movie starred Hugh Grant as an incredibly shallow bachelor with no job and no long term girlfriends. While pursuing his latest challenge, he meets a woman who is friends with a depressed mother of a boy who is severely bullied at school because of the way he has been raised by his mother. The boy becomes attached to Grant, and they help each other solve their respective problems. The highlight of the movie is a scene where the boy gets tired of throwing bits of bread at ducks, and so he hucks the entire loaf into the pond, killing one of the ducks. When park security questions the boy about the dead duck, Grant explains that the boy was merely trying to "sink the body" as it was disturbing the baby of his mother's friend. It's much funnier to watch than it is to read about, especially when described by me. I found this to be the better of the two boy movies.
On Friday, I finished up several projects at work in preparation for my big trip to Seattle. After work, I went to TA's, where we put back a few brews while watching ultimate fighting. The evening was pretty much useless, and I went home fairly early very tired. On Saturday, I slept in quite late, then got up to visit my grandmother before leaving the next day. After that, I wrapped a few Christmas presents, and then I packed for the trip. I had just sat down to waste the time away watching TV, when JW called, having finished up her chores. I went over to her place, where we listened to Christmas music and decorated her tree. It was the widest, most misshapen tree I'd ever seen, and thousands of decorations barely covered its immense surface. It still looked sparse afterward. JW and I were not able to reach the far side of the tree, as we did not have the proper supplies available for such a long journey. It was fun to decorate the tree - it made me feel good that I was getting my Christmas fix, but also bad that I'd be missing much more of it because of my trip. I really like to be with my family and friends before and during Christmas, and I was being robbed of the entire week before Christmas. I would come back from my trip and be thrust into Christmas, and of course it would be over just two short days later. However, my employers agreed to give me the week between Christmas and New Year's off to compensate for the large amounts of travel and the timing of the trip. I'm sure that time will be great, but Christmas will be over.
JW and I went to Jack Astor's after the tree lighting ceremony. We both got a thai curry dish that we agreed was excellent, though the price had been raised to almost $15. We also had nachos that were pretty good - however, our main dishes arrived after we'd finished only a third of the nachos. The food was tasty, but the extremely high prices (completely unjustified) and the poor service will make me think twice before I go to bed. Apparently I'm tired, because I didn't mean to write that just now :) I meant to say "before I go back". Anyway, our trip to the business park also took us to a huge scrapbooking store - a great black hole of worthless items to be used in worthless pursuits. At least they say there is something interesting at the other end of a real black hole - no such luck in this case. After the business park, we headed back down to JW's, where our Christmas mood and abundance of time (what?) led us to watch the Christmas classic, "It's a Wonderful Life". We both had already seen the movie - in fact, it was one of the few movies ever to grab my attention during channel surfing and keep it for over two hours! I find something appealing about society in the earlier parts of the twentieth century - people were respectful of one another (always addressing one another by title, always willing to lend a helpful hand, always knowing others by name), respectful of their appearance (wearing suits and hats to work) and just plain good and pure. The feeling is kind of like the one I got at church last week. Of course, it's likely that there were far more things wrong with the world at that time than there are now.
On Sunday morning, JW and I lazed about before I headed off to the airport to begin what turned out to be a lengthy journey! I thought I might feel worse than I did about parting, but I got through it pretty well. I mean, it's only six days (well, seven if the airlines are airlines come Saturday), and I was excited about the trip in general (even though I wished I wasn't going). We left for the airport at 11:45am. The first leg of the flight took us to Toronto, where we had lunch/dinner before heading for Denver. Our flight to Denver was almost an hour late, and the final leg of our flight was due to depart as we were still taxi-ing (is that a real word?) into the terminal! AN and I began to get excited about the prospect of spending the night in Denver, as we hoped to punish our employers for booking flights so close together. I mean, they did book us on two flights only fifty minutes apart. Anyway, as luck would have it, the third leg was delayed by over two hours, and in fact we had plenty of time (and our bags). The Denver airport was massive, as it is apparently one of the biggest ones in the US given its central location. We could see a huge structure nearby with an odd white, pointy roof - clearly some important landmark we knew nothing about. We sat in a sports bar and had a local brew, after which we boarded the plane. Somehow, the pilots managed to cut down the flight time by almost a third - I guess they can just go faster if they need to? We left two and a half hours late, and arrived one and a half hours late.
I had brought quite a bit to do on the flights. A book (Catch 22), a book of Sudoku's, my mp3 player, and the computer. On the first leg, I did several easy sudokus before getting cocky and trying a "very hard" one, which I didn't come close to finishing. I also listened to a few tunes. I was already too tired to read. The second leg was aboard a newer plane, and they had a TV in the back of every seat. I watched The Illusionist first, despite being very tempted to watch A Scanner Darkly or Little Miss Sunshine (again). There were also several JW-like movies (ones I would watch with her) - African life movies, Lady in the Water and others. I settled on The Illusionist as I hadn't seen it and wasn't likely to see it with anyone else in the near future. It was pretty good. Set in Russia a hundred years ago give or take a bit, it featured a magician and Russia's crown prince. The magician had been a lover of the prince's bride to be in childhood, but they had been torn apart due to their societal classes (what else is new?). During a performance attended by the prince, the magician again meets his lover on stage. They meet in person afterward, and they immediately discover that their feelings still exist for one another. The girl tells the prince outright that she is leaving him for the magician (or illusionist), and the prince kills her shortly after. Then, the illusionist engages in a battle against the prince using his magic - he somehow creates illusions of the deceased on stage, and he soon has the commoners rallying behind him. When his "ghosts" begin to touch upon the fact that the prince had killed the girl (a fact hidden by the prince and his loyal chief of police), the audience begins to question whether the prince is innocent, and they begin move against the prince. The illusionist is motivated to have the prince removed from power because of the nature of this plans reveiled to him by the girl before her death. In his final act, the illusionist himself disappears from the stage. The chief of police then undergoes a revelation, as he pieces together all that he has seen and realizes that the crown prince had indeed committed the murder. He goes to confront the prince, which leads to the prince committing suicide as he realizes he cannot win. Then, the chief sees the illusionist on the street, but is unable to catch up to him. The movie ends with a series of flashbacks during which the chief realizes that everything the illusionist had done was in fact an illusion, including the illusions he had produced on stage. He had used his powers of illusion to have the prince removed from power, complete with the faking of the girl's death, the faking of spirits from beyond the grave and the planting of evidence.
I found the movie to be very unique and I enjoyed it. It starred Edward Norton, and I find that I have liked quite a few of his movies recently. He played the illusionist very well. After the movie, I watched about three-quarters of a documentary on heavy metal. It was Canadian made. It was enlightening, but not as good as I'd hoped. It focused on the history of metal, its impact on society, the devotion of its fans, and on some darker topics. There was a bit about the Norwegian (sp?) black metal bands, where it is believed that the members truly believe in their lyrics (whereas it was pointed out that most metal lyrics are written for shock value and to question society). Apparently a lead of one of the most popular groups murdered another band lead in addition to burning down a historic church. In jail, he was interviewed as saying that he regretted nothing, and that he is merely trying to loosen the grip that Christianity has on the throat of the world. Many of the artists interviewed referred to Christanity as the worst type of brainwashing, and the one that does the most damage to society. One interesting line that I still recall went something like this: "It is very difficult to know what is good in the world. With religion, we strive to determine what is good, what God is and what God wants. But no one really knows what is good - which is the right path to follow. However, every one of us knows what is bad. We know what we're not supposed to do." I guess there isn't really any context here - I just thought it was interesting on the surface. I hope to catch the end of the documentary on our trip from Newark to Halifax on Saturday, as we will be on another one of the jets with the TVs. Maybe AN can finish Little Miss Sunshine (poor him).
I tried to sleep on the third leg, but I couldn't. I kept opening my eyes to see whether drinks were being served, or garbage collected. Then I would look at some small town far below. After arriving in Seattle, AN and I rented a car, as the person we were going to meet had long gone due to our delay. We managed to get a really nice car for a not really nice car price. On the way to the hotel, we passed numerous trees blown down, cars abandoned on the side of the road, ice patches and power outages (impossible to read signs). Apparently there had been a huge windstorm only days before, and eight people had died. Power was going to be out in some parts of the city for another week. We got to the hotel at 5:00am our time, and I got to sleep around 6. Our total trip time was 17 hours and 15 minutes, and I was awake for 23 hours in the end.
Well, I'm really tired again today because we didn't have time for much sleep. I have no idea how this entry has turned out - hopefully it is tolerable! I'm still stuffed full of Thai coconut food too :)
It is clear and cool (in Seattle). I am currently listening nothing because I don't have my freakin' mp3s. There's some bad movie on TV.
Movies watched this week: "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country", "Wonder Boy", "About a Boy", "It's a Wonderful Life", "The Illusionist"
Sunday, December 10, 2006
1454 - Ice and Egypt: Together at Last
Well, another week has come and gone, and Christmas has drawn one week nearer. It still doesn't feel like Christmas to me yet, but hopefully it will soon. I haven't put up any Christmas lights for anyone yet. I haven't put up any trees for anyone yet. I haven't even downloaded any Christmas music because some stupid Star Wars movie collection has been downloading for weeks. I did find a couple of heavy metal Christmas CDs to download, but of course they are not popular, and at this rate Charlton Heston will be cursing the Statue of Liberty before it finishes. I haven't put up a tree, and I may not be putting one up at all (read on).
On Monday I stayed a bit late at work because there was a new build of one of our software projects going out the next day. This worked out well because there was a relatively mild snowstorm that somehow managed to cripple the city worse than any other event ever has. Cars were backed up outside of the office. It was AN's first day at work, and he had the pleasure of waiting for the bus for a half hour only to have the traffic move by one car length. He came back in the office, and after wrapping up a bit more work, we walked over to the pedway over one of the major bus routes. There were at least a hundred people there, waiting for any bus to come down the empty road (the traffic jam was further along). As I live within walking distance of home, I decided to make a run for it on my own. As it turned out, Adam would not get home for another two and a half hours (envision a bus with a hundred people on it, filled with smoke from tires burned off to get up slippery hills).
The walk home was easy, for me at least. The sidewalks were as clear as the roads were not. On the first hill I found several cars stuck, with lines of traffic maneuvering around them. People were having angry conversations on cell phones, burning off minutes in an attempt to stave off insanity for a few moments longer. Cars were even stuck on a piece of road that I considered to be flat. The plows hadn't gotten out before the snow, and the cars had compressed it into thick sheets of ice. I watched as pedestrians helped motorists get their vehicles moving again. There was a bit of the disaster mentality that I had witnessed during Hurricane Juan and "White Juan" - people not in cars seemed jovial and eager to help others.
Further along, I found that the power was still out near JW's (she had called me at work to see if we had power). The lines of traffic headed in that direction of course were therefore going without traffic lights as well. I decided to stop at JW's, figuring that if her power was out, mine would almost certainly be as well, as she is on an emergency grid. It turned out that JW had been doing laundry that was now waiting in the laundromat for power to return.
When the power came back on, we went over to the store (cutting through the lines of traffic) to put the laundry in the dryers. I ordered a donair, despite JW noting that the donair meat had been sitting in the cool store while the power was out. We took the donair back to her place, and I ate it while she ate East Side Mario's leftovers from two nights before. The donair was surprisingly good, and I didn't get sick or die, which was a nice plus.
After the donair, we went back over to the store to get the dried laundry, again cutting through lines of traffic five hours after they had formed. The roads were still ice covered. Emergency vehicles were not able to get to accidents because of the traffic. Police didn't respond to accidents until the next day. We took the laundry back to her place, and we relaxed until bedtime.
On Tuesday work went well, and the build was successfully delivered to the client. I made sure to leave at five o'clock sharp, after which I proceeded to waste the evening away chatting to JW online. Well, it wasn't a waste to chat with her, but it was a waste to not be doing anything else between responses.
On Wednesday I again worked a normal day. In the evening, I worked out the value of a bunch of games I had sold a friend. After that, I again chatted with JW for a while, though I think I did better at multitasking that night.
On Thursday I yet again left at five o'clock (I had been going in earlier though). I finally had an opportunity to take JW down to the ancient Egyptian display at a local art gallery. Firstly, however, we had to eat. We went to a quaint Lebanese store/cafe very close to her house. The food looked good despite the fact that it was unnamed and unpriced. There was a brownish, chunky liquid; some tabouli; a yellow broth-like substance; some liquids resembling lava; and other miscellaneous items equally mysterious. There were also samosas. In the fullness of time (and following much frustration on the part of the clerk), JW ordered a four item combo plate consisting of tabouli and three unknown substances, and a samosa. I ordered a wrap with lettuce fingers and a samosa. Her meal looked good, especially when I found that mine wasn't anything special. The samosa was really good, and the fingers were good, but the wrap was small and I couldn't taste the hummus that gave it its name. I wound up lathering it up with yet another mystery substance that came with it. The mytery substance was a white cream that was quite tangy. It saved the day, as did JW's leavings.
We left the cafe and headed to the bus stop, only to wait in the rain while the bus didn't come. We decided to walk to the art gallery, and it only took us about 25 minutes to get there. We talked about the human soul at length as I had come to several disturbing conclusions that morning. Fortunately there were a few possiblities I hadn't considered, and our chat re-affirmed to me that it was indeed possible for a soul to exist.
The ancient Egypt exhibit was almost completely void of life. A tour guide greeted us and informed us that we could take a tour if we liked. JW wanted to take the tour, and so did I, but I also wanted the poor girl to have the night off, especially given that she'd probably been expecting it (we got there a bit after the scheduled start time). Of course the tour guide insisted that it was okay for us have her give the tour, so we did. It turned out to be an excellent decision, and we learned much more than we would have otherwise.
The personal tour was both more extensive and more informative than most tours at the gallery. We were able to ask lots of questions, and there was a lot of interaction with the guide. She didn't seem to know everything about the exhibits, but she did a good job and I was impressed with the genuine interest that she seemed to show. She did not rush us along because there were only two of us. She didn't seem bothered by the fact that we (JW) asked many questions that we knew she couldn't answer. She didn't get upset when we rambled on about possible meanings for some of the pieces, when in fact were were almost certainly completely off track. We even caught her reading up on the subject after the tour! Needless to say, I was impressed with the service and I very much enjoyed the tour. It was amazing to see things that were literally thousands of years old. I tried to imagine the Egyptians making and wearing these items. I'm sad that so much of our ancient history has been lost. Hopefully history will not repeat itself, as an article I read this week suggested. I really liked the mummies, especially when I found out that there was likely preserved flesh inside them. To think that a body thousands of years old might still be intact is nothing short of amazing. One of my goals in life is to see the Great Pyramids in person, and obviously my visit to the exhibit reminded me of this.
We quickly bolted around other parts of the art gallery after taking our fill of the Egyptian exhibit. There was an interesting exhibit depicting ugly industrial scenes that caught my eye. I could almost feel the infectious bacteria building up in the back of my throat.
We milked the gallery for all it was worth and headed home at closing time (down the snakes and up the ladders). The snake was the number nine bus, and the ladder was the sidewalk leading up to JW's. We relaxed for a while and went to sleep.
On Friday, the office was almost completely empty. It was a very quiet, uneventful day until AN and I were literally walking out the door. B-SM stopped us and asked about a possible trip to Seattle on the 18th. We both thought he was asking which of us would like to go. We backpedalled, spewing out half finished sentences about the proximity to Christmas. In the end, we probably conveyed the idea that either of us could go. B-SM then clarified that it was a two-person trip to take MMC (MCM?) training. He said we'd be back on the 22nd or 23rd. Relieved, we left the office still knowing nothing about the trip. Would we be training on a development methodology, as AN thought? Or would we be training on an existing product that our company was going to modify in the coming months, as I thought? Would we be going for sure? B-SM said he was going to try to set it up.
I was briefly excited about the trip, but I was brought back down to Earth when I realized that it would make Christmas shopping difficult. It would also mean I would likely miss my parents putting up their tree. It would also make it meaningless for me to have a tree, as I would only be at home one night after the trip before going to my parents' for Christmas. My only hope now is that the company will be too cheap to pay our flights, as they will be expensive and hard to get this time of year, especially on such short notice. I'd have no problem going to Seattle in January, so hopefully that will be the case. There is no word to describe the anger I'd feel if I were to get stuck in some strange city over Christmas due to a flight cancellation.
Friday after work I went to pick up JW to go to AN's for his annual Christmas party. Everyone showed up despite a bit of snow. As usual, AN had his smoked salmon appetizers, along with many others. Everyone sat around chatting, eating and drinking. It was nice to see (and smell) a Christmas tree, and the gift exchange was, as usual, fun. I regretted not putting more effort into my gift(s) (I bought JW her's as well), as they did not change hands even once during the game. One at a time, people would select a gift, and then either open it or trade it with someone else's opened gift. That person would then do the same (though an opened gift could only change hands once during the round). I wound up with an old, framed picture of AD looking angry during his not-so-productive years. I also got a keychain with an LED light on it.
On Saturday JW and I got up after hours of lazing about and failed in our attempt to have a shower due to a broken nozzle at JW's. We walked to Piercey's to get a new one, and then to my place for a shower. It was nice to have JW at my place, as she so rarely is. Of course, each of us likes our own home (well, usually I guess) and I often miss my place as I am at JW's so much. After a nice shower, we went to Mary's for breakfast. It was delicious, and as JW pointed out it was another example of the many great places to eat in her part of town. Even though the place was tiny and dirty, the food was good and there were many items on the menu that I wanted to try.
After Mary's, we went to the mall yet again to shop. We were lucky this time to get a parking space straight away. JW had lectured me on giving thoughtful gifts earlier in the day, so I tried hard to find interesting items for gifts. I did find a couple of books for F-LS (the 'F' indicates family), and I managed to buy a CD for myself. I later remembered a couple of other items I was supposed to buy for myself (*grin*). I couldn't find anything for anyone else. The stores had the same tacky crafts they have every year, and I feel like I've beaten everything to death. Every year, my father and I go shopping for my mother. Every year, we feel more pressure because there aren't enough new items appearing in the stores. We've seen it all before, and each year we squeeze out what little oil there is left in the ground. Last year, we actually gave up because we just couldn't find anything suitable. We actually bought my mother the identical earrings we had bought her the year before. She doesn't want earrings this year.
I still need to find things for my mother, aunt, grandmother and of course JW. I just hope JW won't have to fake liking her presents too much.
After the mall on Saturday, JW and I went for groceries. I needed pretty much everything. We were both very tired, and the big meal at Mary's followed by the hot, dry mall had us almost dead on our feet at the grocery store. We barely managed to escape with our lives, and we actually had to lie down at my place while we were there to drop off groceries. We eventually got to her place, and there we decided to cancel our dinner plans we'd made the week before. Instead, we ordered in some mediocre Chinese food. It was expensive, and the servings were small and cold. After the meal, we had planned on watching a movie, but again we wound up lying down. We digested while listening to U2. JW shot up suddenly during one song, as she had just come to a very important realization about her life. She laughed and it became clear that she had experienced what she refers to as God (she had told me about the laughing). She thanked God repeatedly. The occurrence was quite surreal. She told me a lengthy story leading up to the realization, but at first I could find no indication of anything that God or anyone else had done. JW had pieced together a possible explanation for a part of her life based on a couple of U2 songs and some thinking. At first I thought that she had reached the conclusion, and that God had told her somehow "yes, that is it." Then I thought that it was more that she was thanking God for setting the events in motion that led her to the realization. Now I again think the former. Somehow the realization made her laugh - this is something that I cannot hope to understand at the present. Still, it was nice to see her happy, and I was happy that she'd found a good light to cast on a rather dark part of her life.
The next morning (today, Sunday), the cat woke us up early, so JW decided to go to a Sackville church she sometimes goes to. I had said not too long ago that I'd like to come along to church with her just to try to get a look into her life. So I went with her to church. The church is a Vineyard church, and so it is not like traditional churches. People don't dress up. They talk during the service. They dance around in the isles. They wave flags and beat drums. They raise their hands in the air. The service started with about a half hour of singing Christian rock songs. Of course I didn't sing. I didn't wave flags, or beat drums. I didn't dance in the isles. I did however, talk during the service. It was quite amusing to see people so into the music, even though the words were shallow and predictable (JW explained why this is later on). It did seem like a good atmosphere for kids, though I was shocked to see how brainwashed one family's kids were when they got up on stage to light an advent candle. JW said that this type of brainwashing is preferable to the brainwashing we receive from all types of media. Personally, I'd like a third option.
The second part of the service was announcements. They were as normal as one would expect. Following a break (during which a strange, softspoken man gave me a CD and a coupon for free ice cream for coming), there was a pray for the children bit, which seemed much stranger when JW had described it earlier. You basically find some kid and touch them while praying for them. The kids were then sent off to Sunday school, while us adults listened to a sermon/comedy routine by one of the pastors. It would've done me a lot of good to have had that kind of sermon in church when I was a kid - I might not have celebrated so much each week on the way out the door. I enjoyed phrases like "the enemy", "you've got to get the last jab" (with a picture of a boxer up on a big screen - a PowerPoint presentation accompanied the sermon) and "kick in the window to my car."
The final part of the service is meant to help people who are having trouble. Interestingly, the lead pastor came over and put his hand on my back and prayed for me. Apparently I have trouble. JW thinks he prayed that she had not corrupted my mind, but as she said he probably just wanted me to be a good Christian. The pastor said he didn't want to freak me out too much, but he had already done that before he even came over. He looked like an alcoholic wife beater who had sobered up just enough to get to church. He looked insecure and stressed out.
My first church experience in about 7 years was not a bad one. It was amusing to see people so into what was going on around them. It seemed like a breeding ground however for people with mental health issues, as many people appeared (at least to my brainwashed mind) to be quite insane. Then again there were "normal" people as well, such as JW's friends, and an old university professor I saw from across the room. The church had a bit of an evangelistic quality to it. I couldn't help wondering how many people believed in what was going on around them because they wanted to so very much. Perhaps problems in their lives had driven them to this - they needed an answer, and it didn't matter if it was the right one - they just needed it. The human mind is infinitely complex, and it is completely reasonable that the perceived experience of God is in fact an elaborate illusion generated by the mind. The fact that many people experience God differently supports this, because each person's mind is different and therefore the illusion is created differently. Unfortunately I have not had any personal indication to the contrary yet, though hopefully someday I will.
Are JW's experiences of God a creation of her mind? At this point I don't think so - it's difficult to explain why, but she has presented some convincing arguments. I can never rule anything out of course, I can only choose what I am going to believe. Even if I were to have a Godly experience, I'm not sure I'd be able to convince myself that it wasn't just a figment of my imagination. Hopefully the contrary will somehow be obvious. I do know that there are many conclusions that I might draw from the events of my life that I haven't considered - and a few of them might even be conveniently meaningful at a given time.
One final thing about the church - I really like the idea of going somewhere where everyone is honest, caring and friendly. It was nice to experience that feeling again.
Well, my eyes are burning and my wrists are sore - that's what I get for having an interesting week, I guess.
It is clear and cool. I am currently listening to "Almost Crimes" from "You Forgot it in People" by Broken Social Scene.
Movies watched this week: "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier"
On Monday I stayed a bit late at work because there was a new build of one of our software projects going out the next day. This worked out well because there was a relatively mild snowstorm that somehow managed to cripple the city worse than any other event ever has. Cars were backed up outside of the office. It was AN's first day at work, and he had the pleasure of waiting for the bus for a half hour only to have the traffic move by one car length. He came back in the office, and after wrapping up a bit more work, we walked over to the pedway over one of the major bus routes. There were at least a hundred people there, waiting for any bus to come down the empty road (the traffic jam was further along). As I live within walking distance of home, I decided to make a run for it on my own. As it turned out, Adam would not get home for another two and a half hours (envision a bus with a hundred people on it, filled with smoke from tires burned off to get up slippery hills).
The walk home was easy, for me at least. The sidewalks were as clear as the roads were not. On the first hill I found several cars stuck, with lines of traffic maneuvering around them. People were having angry conversations on cell phones, burning off minutes in an attempt to stave off insanity for a few moments longer. Cars were even stuck on a piece of road that I considered to be flat. The plows hadn't gotten out before the snow, and the cars had compressed it into thick sheets of ice. I watched as pedestrians helped motorists get their vehicles moving again. There was a bit of the disaster mentality that I had witnessed during Hurricane Juan and "White Juan" - people not in cars seemed jovial and eager to help others.
Further along, I found that the power was still out near JW's (she had called me at work to see if we had power). The lines of traffic headed in that direction of course were therefore going without traffic lights as well. I decided to stop at JW's, figuring that if her power was out, mine would almost certainly be as well, as she is on an emergency grid. It turned out that JW had been doing laundry that was now waiting in the laundromat for power to return.
When the power came back on, we went over to the store (cutting through the lines of traffic) to put the laundry in the dryers. I ordered a donair, despite JW noting that the donair meat had been sitting in the cool store while the power was out. We took the donair back to her place, and I ate it while she ate East Side Mario's leftovers from two nights before. The donair was surprisingly good, and I didn't get sick or die, which was a nice plus.
After the donair, we went back over to the store to get the dried laundry, again cutting through lines of traffic five hours after they had formed. The roads were still ice covered. Emergency vehicles were not able to get to accidents because of the traffic. Police didn't respond to accidents until the next day. We took the laundry back to her place, and we relaxed until bedtime.
On Tuesday work went well, and the build was successfully delivered to the client. I made sure to leave at five o'clock sharp, after which I proceeded to waste the evening away chatting to JW online. Well, it wasn't a waste to chat with her, but it was a waste to not be doing anything else between responses.
On Wednesday I again worked a normal day. In the evening, I worked out the value of a bunch of games I had sold a friend. After that, I again chatted with JW for a while, though I think I did better at multitasking that night.
On Thursday I yet again left at five o'clock (I had been going in earlier though). I finally had an opportunity to take JW down to the ancient Egyptian display at a local art gallery. Firstly, however, we had to eat. We went to a quaint Lebanese store/cafe very close to her house. The food looked good despite the fact that it was unnamed and unpriced. There was a brownish, chunky liquid; some tabouli; a yellow broth-like substance; some liquids resembling lava; and other miscellaneous items equally mysterious. There were also samosas. In the fullness of time (and following much frustration on the part of the clerk), JW ordered a four item combo plate consisting of tabouli and three unknown substances, and a samosa. I ordered a wrap with lettuce fingers and a samosa. Her meal looked good, especially when I found that mine wasn't anything special. The samosa was really good, and the fingers were good, but the wrap was small and I couldn't taste the hummus that gave it its name. I wound up lathering it up with yet another mystery substance that came with it. The mytery substance was a white cream that was quite tangy. It saved the day, as did JW's leavings.
We left the cafe and headed to the bus stop, only to wait in the rain while the bus didn't come. We decided to walk to the art gallery, and it only took us about 25 minutes to get there. We talked about the human soul at length as I had come to several disturbing conclusions that morning. Fortunately there were a few possiblities I hadn't considered, and our chat re-affirmed to me that it was indeed possible for a soul to exist.
The ancient Egypt exhibit was almost completely void of life. A tour guide greeted us and informed us that we could take a tour if we liked. JW wanted to take the tour, and so did I, but I also wanted the poor girl to have the night off, especially given that she'd probably been expecting it (we got there a bit after the scheduled start time). Of course the tour guide insisted that it was okay for us have her give the tour, so we did. It turned out to be an excellent decision, and we learned much more than we would have otherwise.
The personal tour was both more extensive and more informative than most tours at the gallery. We were able to ask lots of questions, and there was a lot of interaction with the guide. She didn't seem to know everything about the exhibits, but she did a good job and I was impressed with the genuine interest that she seemed to show. She did not rush us along because there were only two of us. She didn't seem bothered by the fact that we (JW) asked many questions that we knew she couldn't answer. She didn't get upset when we rambled on about possible meanings for some of the pieces, when in fact were were almost certainly completely off track. We even caught her reading up on the subject after the tour! Needless to say, I was impressed with the service and I very much enjoyed the tour. It was amazing to see things that were literally thousands of years old. I tried to imagine the Egyptians making and wearing these items. I'm sad that so much of our ancient history has been lost. Hopefully history will not repeat itself, as an article I read this week suggested. I really liked the mummies, especially when I found out that there was likely preserved flesh inside them. To think that a body thousands of years old might still be intact is nothing short of amazing. One of my goals in life is to see the Great Pyramids in person, and obviously my visit to the exhibit reminded me of this.
We quickly bolted around other parts of the art gallery after taking our fill of the Egyptian exhibit. There was an interesting exhibit depicting ugly industrial scenes that caught my eye. I could almost feel the infectious bacteria building up in the back of my throat.
We milked the gallery for all it was worth and headed home at closing time (down the snakes and up the ladders). The snake was the number nine bus, and the ladder was the sidewalk leading up to JW's. We relaxed for a while and went to sleep.
On Friday, the office was almost completely empty. It was a very quiet, uneventful day until AN and I were literally walking out the door. B-SM stopped us and asked about a possible trip to Seattle on the 18th. We both thought he was asking which of us would like to go. We backpedalled, spewing out half finished sentences about the proximity to Christmas. In the end, we probably conveyed the idea that either of us could go. B-SM then clarified that it was a two-person trip to take MMC (MCM?) training. He said we'd be back on the 22nd or 23rd. Relieved, we left the office still knowing nothing about the trip. Would we be training on a development methodology, as AN thought? Or would we be training on an existing product that our company was going to modify in the coming months, as I thought? Would we be going for sure? B-SM said he was going to try to set it up.
I was briefly excited about the trip, but I was brought back down to Earth when I realized that it would make Christmas shopping difficult. It would also mean I would likely miss my parents putting up their tree. It would also make it meaningless for me to have a tree, as I would only be at home one night after the trip before going to my parents' for Christmas. My only hope now is that the company will be too cheap to pay our flights, as they will be expensive and hard to get this time of year, especially on such short notice. I'd have no problem going to Seattle in January, so hopefully that will be the case. There is no word to describe the anger I'd feel if I were to get stuck in some strange city over Christmas due to a flight cancellation.
Friday after work I went to pick up JW to go to AN's for his annual Christmas party. Everyone showed up despite a bit of snow. As usual, AN had his smoked salmon appetizers, along with many others. Everyone sat around chatting, eating and drinking. It was nice to see (and smell) a Christmas tree, and the gift exchange was, as usual, fun. I regretted not putting more effort into my gift(s) (I bought JW her's as well), as they did not change hands even once during the game. One at a time, people would select a gift, and then either open it or trade it with someone else's opened gift. That person would then do the same (though an opened gift could only change hands once during the round). I wound up with an old, framed picture of AD looking angry during his not-so-productive years. I also got a keychain with an LED light on it.
On Saturday JW and I got up after hours of lazing about and failed in our attempt to have a shower due to a broken nozzle at JW's. We walked to Piercey's to get a new one, and then to my place for a shower. It was nice to have JW at my place, as she so rarely is. Of course, each of us likes our own home (well, usually I guess) and I often miss my place as I am at JW's so much. After a nice shower, we went to Mary's for breakfast. It was delicious, and as JW pointed out it was another example of the many great places to eat in her part of town. Even though the place was tiny and dirty, the food was good and there were many items on the menu that I wanted to try.
After Mary's, we went to the mall yet again to shop. We were lucky this time to get a parking space straight away. JW had lectured me on giving thoughtful gifts earlier in the day, so I tried hard to find interesting items for gifts. I did find a couple of books for F-LS (the 'F' indicates family), and I managed to buy a CD for myself. I later remembered a couple of other items I was supposed to buy for myself (*grin*). I couldn't find anything for anyone else. The stores had the same tacky crafts they have every year, and I feel like I've beaten everything to death. Every year, my father and I go shopping for my mother. Every year, we feel more pressure because there aren't enough new items appearing in the stores. We've seen it all before, and each year we squeeze out what little oil there is left in the ground. Last year, we actually gave up because we just couldn't find anything suitable. We actually bought my mother the identical earrings we had bought her the year before. She doesn't want earrings this year.
I still need to find things for my mother, aunt, grandmother and of course JW. I just hope JW won't have to fake liking her presents too much.
After the mall on Saturday, JW and I went for groceries. I needed pretty much everything. We were both very tired, and the big meal at Mary's followed by the hot, dry mall had us almost dead on our feet at the grocery store. We barely managed to escape with our lives, and we actually had to lie down at my place while we were there to drop off groceries. We eventually got to her place, and there we decided to cancel our dinner plans we'd made the week before. Instead, we ordered in some mediocre Chinese food. It was expensive, and the servings were small and cold. After the meal, we had planned on watching a movie, but again we wound up lying down. We digested while listening to U2. JW shot up suddenly during one song, as she had just come to a very important realization about her life. She laughed and it became clear that she had experienced what she refers to as God (she had told me about the laughing). She thanked God repeatedly. The occurrence was quite surreal. She told me a lengthy story leading up to the realization, but at first I could find no indication of anything that God or anyone else had done. JW had pieced together a possible explanation for a part of her life based on a couple of U2 songs and some thinking. At first I thought that she had reached the conclusion, and that God had told her somehow "yes, that is it." Then I thought that it was more that she was thanking God for setting the events in motion that led her to the realization. Now I again think the former. Somehow the realization made her laugh - this is something that I cannot hope to understand at the present. Still, it was nice to see her happy, and I was happy that she'd found a good light to cast on a rather dark part of her life.
The next morning (today, Sunday), the cat woke us up early, so JW decided to go to a Sackville church she sometimes goes to. I had said not too long ago that I'd like to come along to church with her just to try to get a look into her life. So I went with her to church. The church is a Vineyard church, and so it is not like traditional churches. People don't dress up. They talk during the service. They dance around in the isles. They wave flags and beat drums. They raise their hands in the air. The service started with about a half hour of singing Christian rock songs. Of course I didn't sing. I didn't wave flags, or beat drums. I didn't dance in the isles. I did however, talk during the service. It was quite amusing to see people so into the music, even though the words were shallow and predictable (JW explained why this is later on). It did seem like a good atmosphere for kids, though I was shocked to see how brainwashed one family's kids were when they got up on stage to light an advent candle. JW said that this type of brainwashing is preferable to the brainwashing we receive from all types of media. Personally, I'd like a third option.
The second part of the service was announcements. They were as normal as one would expect. Following a break (during which a strange, softspoken man gave me a CD and a coupon for free ice cream for coming), there was a pray for the children bit, which seemed much stranger when JW had described it earlier. You basically find some kid and touch them while praying for them. The kids were then sent off to Sunday school, while us adults listened to a sermon/comedy routine by one of the pastors. It would've done me a lot of good to have had that kind of sermon in church when I was a kid - I might not have celebrated so much each week on the way out the door. I enjoyed phrases like "the enemy", "you've got to get the last jab" (with a picture of a boxer up on a big screen - a PowerPoint presentation accompanied the sermon) and "kick in the window to my car."
The final part of the service is meant to help people who are having trouble. Interestingly, the lead pastor came over and put his hand on my back and prayed for me. Apparently I have trouble. JW thinks he prayed that she had not corrupted my mind, but as she said he probably just wanted me to be a good Christian. The pastor said he didn't want to freak me out too much, but he had already done that before he even came over. He looked like an alcoholic wife beater who had sobered up just enough to get to church. He looked insecure and stressed out.
My first church experience in about 7 years was not a bad one. It was amusing to see people so into what was going on around them. It seemed like a breeding ground however for people with mental health issues, as many people appeared (at least to my brainwashed mind) to be quite insane. Then again there were "normal" people as well, such as JW's friends, and an old university professor I saw from across the room. The church had a bit of an evangelistic quality to it. I couldn't help wondering how many people believed in what was going on around them because they wanted to so very much. Perhaps problems in their lives had driven them to this - they needed an answer, and it didn't matter if it was the right one - they just needed it. The human mind is infinitely complex, and it is completely reasonable that the perceived experience of God is in fact an elaborate illusion generated by the mind. The fact that many people experience God differently supports this, because each person's mind is different and therefore the illusion is created differently. Unfortunately I have not had any personal indication to the contrary yet, though hopefully someday I will.
Are JW's experiences of God a creation of her mind? At this point I don't think so - it's difficult to explain why, but she has presented some convincing arguments. I can never rule anything out of course, I can only choose what I am going to believe. Even if I were to have a Godly experience, I'm not sure I'd be able to convince myself that it wasn't just a figment of my imagination. Hopefully the contrary will somehow be obvious. I do know that there are many conclusions that I might draw from the events of my life that I haven't considered - and a few of them might even be conveniently meaningful at a given time.
One final thing about the church - I really like the idea of going somewhere where everyone is honest, caring and friendly. It was nice to experience that feeling again.
Well, my eyes are burning and my wrists are sore - that's what I get for having an interesting week, I guess.
It is clear and cool. I am currently listening to "Almost Crimes" from "You Forgot it in People" by Broken Social Scene.
Movies watched this week: "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier"
Sunday, December 3, 2006
1453 - TA and Needles
Well, its December now. I had no idea Christmas was approaching until JW's last-minute, frenetic pursuit of an advent calendar. Sadly, we were only able to find hundreds of copies of some kind of princess-themed calendar that nobody wanted (including her). I like to have an advent calendar, but I hadn't even noticed that December 1st was approaching. It reminds me that Christmas is indeed coming, and I often need reminding as I tend to forget now that I am working in the real world. The past couple of Christmases have sprung up on me, as I've worked right up to midday on Christmas Eve (or the day before). I am thrust from the coporate world and my life in all its regularity to a very happy carefree time, full of smiles, laughter, egg nog, seafood chowder, Christmas trees and gift giving. Then it ends rather suddenly when I head out the morning of the 27th (26th this year?) to find a good deal on something I need. This year, I don't think there is anything I need - so maybe I will skip the boxing day sales. Fortunately, New Year's follows closely to rescue me from the sadness that follows the end of Christmas.
My favourite day of the year is probably Christmas day. As a child, it was the only day of the year that my grandparents came for a day-long (sometimes two-day) visit. We'd open our presents, eat lunch, then spend the afternoon lazing about solving brain teasers or the like. Then, my Mum would cook, and my grandfather would slice the turkey. We'd snap our crackers with one another, wear those silly paper hats and enjoy the meal. We'd all sit around talking with tea and both trifle and some kind of flaming pudding. Then everyone would leave, and my parents and I would sit downstairs and watch TV. Around this time I'd start checking my watch constantly (a habit I am still in), dreading 12am coming around. Finally it would happen, and I'd be sad that I'd have to wait an entire year for Christmas to come again.
Anyway, I can talk more about that in the coming weeks. This week was very busy work-wise. We have a deadline set for end of day Tuesday, and I spent the week fixing bugs in code written by other people. I stayed late most days. Nothing much happened on Monday, at least nothing I can remember. On Tuesday I got off work and went to JW's and did something else that I don't remember. Oh yeah, we went to see a movie about AIDS called "3 Needles". It was a special showing put on by a local group. The movie was divided into three parts portraying AIDS affecting people's lives in three different places in the world: Africa, China and Canada. Surprisingly, it was a pretty good movie and it was an eye opener regarding how AIDS is spread. We met one of JW's friends and her mate outside of the movie and spent the next half hour trying to avoid walking alongside them having already said goodbye. We met them again at the bus stop we had planned on waiting at, so we kept walking. Luckily, the #7 bus was late, and we caught it, avoiding a third meeting.
On Wednesday, it was TA's birthday. After work, I went over to his place, and we had a few beer before going down to the local trivia bar. Unfortunately, none of the usual crowd was there, and we were forced to form our own two-man team, with no hope of getting the obscure pop culture movie and music references so well known by our usual partners. We (TA) managed to score 14/20 on one round, but we did not threaten to win. We enjoyed a few beers, followed by a couple of double cheeseburgers at McD's before heading home.
On Thursday I had wanted to go see an Egyptian display at a local art gallery, but had to stay late at work. I went over to JW's after work, and we relaxed a little as it was already late. On Friday, I again stayed late and went over to JW's. We went grocery shopping and then watched "The Polar Express" to get us in the Christmas spirit. It was a children's movie about believing in Christmas. The main character has lost faith in Santa's existence, until he meets him in an elaborate dream. JW pointed out that the movie was talking about faith in a greater sense, which cheapened the experience a bit. The movie tended to focus on elaborate visual shots clearly intended to show off the computer animation in use, unfortunately.
On Saturday, JW and I lazed about a bit and then braved the crowds at a local mall having a tax free sale. It was a terrible mistake, as we spent about 20 minutes in the parking lot trying to get a space! It was dog eat dog, with people clearly signalling for a space having their spaces robbed by maniacs desperate to make a Christmas purchase. Inside, the mall was as crowded as it was outside, with long lines at most stores. It was nice to get out of the mall only two hours later, with at least a bit accomplished on JW's part. After the mall, we headed downtown for dinner, only to find Talay Thai closed and Taj Mahal too expensive - there was a $500 menu item! We walked all the way down to East Side Mario's, and like cheapest of skates, we proceeded to eat a ton of the free fresh bread whilst taking half of our dinners home in a box. The bread is really good though, and I could eat it as a meal. In fact I did that today.
Saturday night was TA's real birthday party. It was attended by AN, AD, AB, KB, PL, J?, C?, ??, KD and myself. The guys really took over. We watched a demolition race on a figure eight track for about an hour. Then we turned on "When Stunts Go Wrong 2", watching people break themselves in half to our delight. We joked about taping down the "listen" button for the intercom system at TAs apartment, or even better the "let some crazy person in" button, but instead we yielded to crowd pressure and played video games. We had a few rounds with the bongos, followed by some four player Goldeneye action (I didn't win any rounds), followed by Street Fighter 2 Turbo. We sat around chatting to end the evening.
On Sunday, I got up and went shopping again with my parents. The stores wern't nearly as busy, and we got a lot done. I find that I am becoming an old man, as I got two pairs of shoes very similar to my old ones, and I tried to find a watch that looked like my old one to no avail. It broke and cannot be fixed, otherwise I'd have it fixed. We saw a couple, but they were too expensive. Even though my parents insisted that it would be okay to spend a lot, I knew I could find what I was looking for at a reasonable price (as I had found my old one). I didn't. I'll try again next week, I guess. We also looked at some photos of real places all around Nova Scotia. The treatment of the photos made them look completely unreal - I hated that they were so perfect, and I had to disappoint my parents by not finding anything I wanted.
After the mall, I came home for supper, as my parents were going to a birthday dinner. I ate half a stick of sourdough bread with garden vegetable havarti cheese I had waited 15 minutes in line to buy. AFTER supper, I cooked for two hours. I made an extremely spicy Thai "stirfry" with coconut milk, peanut sauce and tons of spices. I also made a double batch of fudge that almost filled my large saucepan. It's cooling downstairs now as I type. I haven't made it in a long time because I can't resist it when its in my house. I think I will give a good chunk of it to JW, who wants to try it, sacrificing her health to save my own. I was really feeling healthy when I poured 6 cups of sugar into 2 1/3 cups of boiling margarine. Then it got better when I added 6 cups of mini marshmallows and 4 cups of chocolate chips. Yes, that fudge is nutrition central, with zero of my recommended daily vitamin/mineral values.
I'm not particularly looking forward to the upcoming week, though I suspect it will improve after Tuesday. Remember, you're always welcome in my kitchen.
It is clear and cold. I am currently listening to "Big Mouth" from "1992-2002" by Underworld.
Movies watched this week: "3 Needles", "The Polar Express"
My favourite day of the year is probably Christmas day. As a child, it was the only day of the year that my grandparents came for a day-long (sometimes two-day) visit. We'd open our presents, eat lunch, then spend the afternoon lazing about solving brain teasers or the like. Then, my Mum would cook, and my grandfather would slice the turkey. We'd snap our crackers with one another, wear those silly paper hats and enjoy the meal. We'd all sit around talking with tea and both trifle and some kind of flaming pudding. Then everyone would leave, and my parents and I would sit downstairs and watch TV. Around this time I'd start checking my watch constantly (a habit I am still in), dreading 12am coming around. Finally it would happen, and I'd be sad that I'd have to wait an entire year for Christmas to come again.
Anyway, I can talk more about that in the coming weeks. This week was very busy work-wise. We have a deadline set for end of day Tuesday, and I spent the week fixing bugs in code written by other people. I stayed late most days. Nothing much happened on Monday, at least nothing I can remember. On Tuesday I got off work and went to JW's and did something else that I don't remember. Oh yeah, we went to see a movie about AIDS called "3 Needles". It was a special showing put on by a local group. The movie was divided into three parts portraying AIDS affecting people's lives in three different places in the world: Africa, China and Canada. Surprisingly, it was a pretty good movie and it was an eye opener regarding how AIDS is spread. We met one of JW's friends and her mate outside of the movie and spent the next half hour trying to avoid walking alongside them having already said goodbye. We met them again at the bus stop we had planned on waiting at, so we kept walking. Luckily, the #7 bus was late, and we caught it, avoiding a third meeting.
On Wednesday, it was TA's birthday. After work, I went over to his place, and we had a few beer before going down to the local trivia bar. Unfortunately, none of the usual crowd was there, and we were forced to form our own two-man team, with no hope of getting the obscure pop culture movie and music references so well known by our usual partners. We (TA) managed to score 14/20 on one round, but we did not threaten to win. We enjoyed a few beers, followed by a couple of double cheeseburgers at McD's before heading home.
On Thursday I had wanted to go see an Egyptian display at a local art gallery, but had to stay late at work. I went over to JW's after work, and we relaxed a little as it was already late. On Friday, I again stayed late and went over to JW's. We went grocery shopping and then watched "The Polar Express" to get us in the Christmas spirit. It was a children's movie about believing in Christmas. The main character has lost faith in Santa's existence, until he meets him in an elaborate dream. JW pointed out that the movie was talking about faith in a greater sense, which cheapened the experience a bit. The movie tended to focus on elaborate visual shots clearly intended to show off the computer animation in use, unfortunately.
On Saturday, JW and I lazed about a bit and then braved the crowds at a local mall having a tax free sale. It was a terrible mistake, as we spent about 20 minutes in the parking lot trying to get a space! It was dog eat dog, with people clearly signalling for a space having their spaces robbed by maniacs desperate to make a Christmas purchase. Inside, the mall was as crowded as it was outside, with long lines at most stores. It was nice to get out of the mall only two hours later, with at least a bit accomplished on JW's part. After the mall, we headed downtown for dinner, only to find Talay Thai closed and Taj Mahal too expensive - there was a $500 menu item! We walked all the way down to East Side Mario's, and like cheapest of skates, we proceeded to eat a ton of the free fresh bread whilst taking half of our dinners home in a box. The bread is really good though, and I could eat it as a meal. In fact I did that today.
Saturday night was TA's real birthday party. It was attended by AN, AD, AB, KB, PL, J?, C?, ??, KD and myself. The guys really took over. We watched a demolition race on a figure eight track for about an hour. Then we turned on "When Stunts Go Wrong 2", watching people break themselves in half to our delight. We joked about taping down the "listen" button for the intercom system at TAs apartment, or even better the "let some crazy person in" button, but instead we yielded to crowd pressure and played video games. We had a few rounds with the bongos, followed by some four player Goldeneye action (I didn't win any rounds), followed by Street Fighter 2 Turbo. We sat around chatting to end the evening.
On Sunday, I got up and went shopping again with my parents. The stores wern't nearly as busy, and we got a lot done. I find that I am becoming an old man, as I got two pairs of shoes very similar to my old ones, and I tried to find a watch that looked like my old one to no avail. It broke and cannot be fixed, otherwise I'd have it fixed. We saw a couple, but they were too expensive. Even though my parents insisted that it would be okay to spend a lot, I knew I could find what I was looking for at a reasonable price (as I had found my old one). I didn't. I'll try again next week, I guess. We also looked at some photos of real places all around Nova Scotia. The treatment of the photos made them look completely unreal - I hated that they were so perfect, and I had to disappoint my parents by not finding anything I wanted.
After the mall, I came home for supper, as my parents were going to a birthday dinner. I ate half a stick of sourdough bread with garden vegetable havarti cheese I had waited 15 minutes in line to buy. AFTER supper, I cooked for two hours. I made an extremely spicy Thai "stirfry" with coconut milk, peanut sauce and tons of spices. I also made a double batch of fudge that almost filled my large saucepan. It's cooling downstairs now as I type. I haven't made it in a long time because I can't resist it when its in my house. I think I will give a good chunk of it to JW, who wants to try it, sacrificing her health to save my own. I was really feeling healthy when I poured 6 cups of sugar into 2 1/3 cups of boiling margarine. Then it got better when I added 6 cups of mini marshmallows and 4 cups of chocolate chips. Yes, that fudge is nutrition central, with zero of my recommended daily vitamin/mineral values.
I'm not particularly looking forward to the upcoming week, though I suspect it will improve after Tuesday. Remember, you're always welcome in my kitchen.
It is clear and cold. I am currently listening to "Big Mouth" from "1992-2002" by Underworld.
Movies watched this week: "3 Needles", "The Polar Express"
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