just add water and watch it grow

six months and one week eh?


speaking of things that have been going on for months, have a looksie here:

this roll of lifesavers has been on my desk since i started. i even mentioned it before. it's definitely still there though in all of it's five-coloured glory. i suppose though that it makes sense that it's still there because i haven't thrown it out. i'm not quite sure why though - i don't have any intention of eating it. maybe i should add it to a time capsule or something like that. there aren't enough time capsules out there. seriously, weren't people from like 50 or 100 years ago obsessed with them? i think i should be finding these things all the time, uncovering the mysteries of 1958 with astonishing regularity. i think even the pope made a decree some time ago that some time ago. i'm pretty sure his statements had something to do with it being every human's duty to bury a time capsule at least once per year, and preferrably twice (once for a 50 year opening, once for a 100 year opening).

but then again, it's not like i've been burying time capsules all over the place, and i suppose i haven't been digging up my back yard looking for them either. those are probably things that should happen if i wanted to find one eh?

bamboo wednesday! part 8! and 1 day late!

well, i took the picture on wednesday. does that count?


still growing, but it looks more like it's growing outward now. the mediocrity of a camera phone's photos don't really do it justice.

so we've moved about 95% of our stuff into the new place. i'm very happy with the house so far, except it seems to be the scene of a crime caused by the muppet mafia...


as you can see, this poor little guy's arm is sticking out of a trash bag, and there's a block of ice where his head should be. perhaps i should call the police, or maybe even the pope. but then again, maybe the pope is responsible for this. the new pope is gaining a reputation for not being as forgiving as the old pope, and he could be a crotchety old bastard when he wanted to be.

a sign i'm moving to a better neighbourhood

or neighborhood for our american friends...

i was in the new place doing some cleaning and painting and hear a ring at the doorbell.

no, it wasn't the pope, though it's not uncommon that he shows up unexpectedly. last time he showed up with two kegs and the entire star trek collection on dvd. i just stayed still and hoped that he didn't hear me.

opening the door actually revealed two neighbourhood girls somewhere around the age of 10. "do you have any daughters?" they asked.

where i live now, the only people who knock on my door are politicians and building maintenance people.

later in the day i looked out the window to see that these kids had gone on to decorate half the street with flowers and other girly things with sidewalk chalk. the only things i generally get to see on the street i live on now are modified 15 year old honda civics driving too fast and minivans packed with obnoxious families that have an insane amount of kids/relatives in them.

photos will be coming soon as soon as we're done painting eh.

sometimes i rhyme slow

two weeks ago today was the last time i posted something here. i knew that i've been busy, but wasn't entirely aware that my goofing-off-interneting time had been so seriously impacted.

in that time the weather finally warmed up and i've spent a ridiculous amount of time working. the only cool thing about working so much is that my two-year debt reduction plan is actually making a visible impact on the amount of money i have to pay out in bills every month.

hopefully this week i'm going to be bringing my bike out of seasonal retirement. i've kept a winter layer of padding around my belly that i'd like to get rid of. i'm quite anxious to hop on to my Trek 7.3 FX (Martini was asking what kind i had) and get out riding, though i know i'm going to have to take it easy at first because i've gotten myself out of shape this winter.

i'm gonna do some of the upgrades that i mentioned earlier - put some good grips and bar-ends on it, and maybe those pedals that clip onto the bottom of your shoes (which would mean that i've got to buy shoes too darn it). it's been a pretty good bike so far. i abuse it like a mountain bike, but it rides pretty quickly. it's no race bike, but it gets the job done well at a good price. certainly something i'd recommend to someone who was thinking of taking their bicycle as an option to commute to work.

i'm debating doing another long trip this year like i did last year, but giving myself an extra day or two to do it so i don't kill myself riding 300 km on the hottest days of the summer (again).

this morning i went to the effort of making a pot of coffee and even putting it in my travel mug. that travel mug is still sitting on my kitchen counter, so now i have to drink crummy work coffee. the pope would be very angry.

it means you use 50% of your brain power

today i witnessed the true definition of insanity. not even the pope on one of his alcohol and coffee fueled binges could stir up the kind of insanity i witnessed today



it was the 50% off everything sale at Value Village.

to mark the occasion, all of the stores opened an hour early, including my local store. shortly before eight o'clock this morning, we arrived and noticed that a line up of old ladies and pregnant bargain hunters was already forming in the cold morning air.

when the doors opened, the old people flooded in like a bucket of soaking wet kleenex. people were grabbing carts two and three at a time. sheer madness.

i always head to the junk section first - you know, the section with all the old coffee mugs, useless appliances, board games and clocks that nobody could ever want in their house, but many will be happy to purchase for 50% off. the above clock was one of the featured items - a bargain at any price, i'm sure. i was tempted to get it in order to grace the top of my computer at work, or perhaps to ward off the evil spells of the underpants gnomes.

but alas, i left it. surrounded by old ladies, i knew that grabbing hold of such a treasure would be depriving some unsuspecting child of a humiliating birthday present, and likely would result in my losing a limb. you know how seniors get - they hide razor blades to cut you under their dentures.

the morning during which mmat complains

the stretch of consecutive work days is drawing to an end. this weekend will consist of the first two days out of many that i will not be responsible for showing up to either of my jobs. this is a good thing.

i learned a valuable lesson in grocery shopping last night. never EVER trust that your grocery store will be proactive enough to verify that the expiry date on the products that you want to buy has not yet passed. last night's trip to the Dominion (where else can you go grocery shopping at 10:30 pm) resulted in a package of expired mini-donuts. expired by EIGHT DAYS. why didn't i notice this when i bought them? well, i s'pose i assumed that a grocery store would have enough common sense to periodically check the expiry dates of the products it sells, and remove the old and very stale donuts from its shelves.

once the pope bought a box of donuts at the grocery store that he thought was expired. the wrath and fury that followed was documented closely in the Hellraiser movie series. if there was one way to stay on the pope's good list, it would be to not mess with his coffee. if there were two ways to stay on the pope's good list, that second way would to serve only the freshest donuts. but in reality - the only person who could possibly be on the pope's good list is Chuck Norris.

after the pope's stale-donut fueled massacre, he noticed after the fact that he had actually picked up a bag of multi-grain bagels. he rejoiced and invented both christmas and the mandarin buffet on the same day.

didn't your mom ever tell you to wash up?

even the hubble telescope can see the dark spot on your anus.  or was that Uranus?

today's effort in combatting traffic involved me sleeping until 8 in the morning.  i woke up initially around six to the sound of my neighbour sticking his head out the window and shouting down to his idiot construction co-workers waiting in the van 7 floors below and noticed that his shouting was accompanied by very heavy rain, thunder and lightning.

that particular combination (rain, thunder, lightning, idiots shouting at each other) means terrible traffic in the GTA.  i consulted the dog and the cat that live in my apartment and they agreed - two more hours of sleep should solve all of my problems.

so i leisurely woke up at 4 minutes to eight, showered, ate breakfast and drank some chocolate milk (an essential part to any healthy breakfast) and started on my way to work.

traffic still licked dirty giraffe balls, but at least it moved at a steady pace - averaging 28 km/h today.

some time in between 5pm last night and 10am this morning, somebody left 7 cents on my desk in the form of a nickel and two pennies.  pope B XVI told me once way back before he became pope, that someone had done this to him at the vatican.  seven cents in canadian coins waiting patiently for him as he arrived one morning. 

he never really got into too much detail as to what he was doing in the vatican before he became pope, but needless to say it wasn't long afterwards that ol' JP2 started getting pretty sick and a new emperor... er... pope was elected.

a milestone age, back when ages used to be made of stone

so for the 2nd time in three days, there is a bag of cookies on my desk that i didn't buy.  this is always a pleasant site to see.

you see, i very often will buy cookies and leave the box/bag/package open on my desk for all to share.  people are helpless against the powers of the cookie.  they help me to get what i want whenever i need whatever that might be.

t'other day i bought a bag of cookies - Oreo Double Stuf cookies were on sale for $1.88 so i thought "why not eh?"

this bag of cookies lasted a mere 9 business hours.

so i guess through guilt, anonymous people have decided to contribute by placing their own cookie offers in my name.  the pope would be very pleased.

and today is Tracey's birthday, so go over to her blog and say hi and happy birthday.  it is a milestone birthday for her - she will be celebrating the recurrence of her 29th birthday, which would make her the same age as me now, though i don't seem to remember her being my age before this year.

Ted Murphy is making a run for the papacy

i've been digging around the PayPerPost website (the place that pays people to discreetly hide their ads on blogs) and found out a little inside information on their CEO Ted Murphy. it seems to me that there's got to be more reasoning behind this advertising strategy than just finding ways for people to not-so-subtly stuff adverts for hair growth formula and low-cost pharmaceuticals.

from what i understand the funds that aren't being diverted to the completely unaware bloggers that have signed up are being sent into an account that will be solely dedicated to overthrowing the current pope by sending him into a blind fury by giving him bad coffee. such a coffee ignited fury has been seen only by few who've lived to tell the tale, and it's not a pretty site.

but if you do support the idea of overthrowing the papacy, you can sign up too (creatively hiding ads on blogs) and use my email address to show who referred you.