I’m trapped in the doctor’s office waiting room, and this Christmas music is killing me. I just heard a jive version of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”. Up next: Anne Murray singing “Away In A Manger”.
He’p me, Jesus. He’p me.
[UPDATE] Now it’s “Mary’s Boy Child” by Boney M. Hallelujah.
[UPDATE2] Michael Buble followed immediately by Mariah Carey. I’m praying for death.
[tags]bad xmas music[/tags]
There was snow this morning for the first time. Not a lot, just a little bit in the air. Now that it’s December and there’s a bit of snow in the air, I’ll allow myself to feel like Christmas is getting close. T-Bone and I were talking yesterday about how we’re feeling stressed, like we’ve left gift shopping and decorating far too late because the merchants have been decked out for the season since Nov 1…or earlier, if you’re The Bay.
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Speaking of Christmas-overload: the Globe and Mail discusses the now-ubiquitous Christmas Musak. I suppose it’s not fair to pick on yuletide Musak though; it’s awful all year round. Instead, what worries me is that I’ll have to hear the same shit Christmas music every day for the next month; “Wonderful Christmas Time” by Wings, anyone?
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Met M2, KP and DI for some food & drink last night at the Rebel House. I haven’t seen them in a long time, so it was good to catch up and have a few laughs.
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If you liked Shaun Of The Dead, you’ll be as excited about Hot Fuzz as I am. Check out the trailer(s). Bonus points for excellent use of an Eels song too.
[tags]snow, christmas season, musak, rebel house, shaun of the dead, hot fuzz, eels[/tags]
Since I’ve gotten ahead on my reading & assignments, I’ve decided not to do any school work at all until Tuesday. I cannot tell you how happy this makes me.
It’s a busy weekend anyway; we have dinner at Cava tomorrow night with friends and dinner with other friends on Monday. That leaves tonight and Sunday for going to movies, catching up on Deadwood (I watched 3 episodes last night) and generally lazing about.
More good news: it’s supposed to be 11 degrees tomorrow too, and my cold seems to be on the way out. Huzzah.
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Spoke to my friend the constable last night. She’s loving her new job, maintaining law & order in the far north. Well…”far” is a relative word, I guess; while she’s not in Melville Island or Inuvik or even Deline, she’s further north than most people ever go. She’s certainly further north than I’ve ever been, by about 800 km. Anyway, she loves it there and she loves what she’s doing, and she’s even adopted a dog, so good for her.
[tags]slacking, the great white north[/tags]
The Raptors finally won a game.
The Canadiens won again.
I finished my third stats assignment.
My cold’s feeling a little better.
Life in general makes me happy. Little things like this are just gravy icing (I hate gravy).
[tags]toronto raptors, montreal canadiens[/tags]
I definitely have a cold. Sore throat, stuffed up goodness. It’s not that bad yet, but it’s enough to be annoying.
I also seem to have pulled a muscle (?) in my chest last night while dismantling the TV/stereo equipment. I assume it was from trying to gently drop the 101-pound TV into the box; I actually don’t remember doing it. All I know is that this morning it hurts to do…well, anything.
On the plus side: I have the day off, I finished my stats assignment last night, and my new TV & stereo are being delivered today.
[tags]cold, pulled chest muscle[/tags]
Since I’m not playing basketball this winter (since we lost 5 of our regulars — PC and his gf have a baby now, pac-man and his wife moved to Oakville, and miggles moved to BC — it’s no longer a viable option for PC to rent the gym) I’ve had to step up the running routine. Now that I’ve settled into it and just made it part of the daily routine it’s fairly easy. I ran 4 times (2-3 miles at a time) last week, and would’ve done more if work hadn’t intruded. I should be able to go 5 times this week as well. It’s not much — only 10-12 miles a week — but if fits in with my work & study schedules.
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The new HD PVR arrives tomorrow, and the TV & stereo arrive Friday. I’m taking Friday off so that I can box up the old stuff, clean the shelves and vacuum the floor, help the guys set it up and then turn everything to 11 while I watch The Matrix.
[tags]treadmill, pvr, hdtv[/tags]
Mahir! Mahir is back! He kiss you!
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I am now officially at the low point of this MBA program. The administrators warned us we’d bottom out somewhere around the beginning of the third year, and they were right. It feels like we’ve been at this forever (it’s been just over two years, in fact) but it also feels like we’re still far from finishing (just under two years, obviously). We also just finished off one of the worst courses (as far as workload) and moved immediately into another — quantitative methods — which is as boring as watching paper turn yellow in the sun.
Quants is no picnic either when it comes to the amount of work to do: in order to avoid schoolwork over the Christmas holidays I have to read about 30 pages — of stats, mind you — each night and work on perpetual assignments. I’m trying to run 2-3 miles 5-6 times a week, plus there’s work and the usual errands like groceries. There’s also my daily RSS compulsion; I feel a little lost if I can’t see what’s going on in the world. I’d love to write more interesting things on the blog but I just don’t have the hours. Luckily Nellie takes it upon herself to cook for my sorry ass pretty much every night or I’d be the walking dead.
I’ll be really glad when I can watch TV or go see a movie without feeling guilty for not studying.
54.62% down. 45.38% to go.
[tags]mahir, i hate quants[/tags]
We watched a movie called Layer Cake (imdb | rotten tomatoes) last night. It was pretty good; I described it to T-Bone as a movie Guy Ritchie would make if he was off speed. Not that I have evidence of Guy Ritchie doing speed; it was just an apt description.
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Sir Nicholas Stern’s report on the economic impact of climate change reminded me of a story CB told us on the weekend. She described a conversation she’d had with someone else where she was told, because she’s both an atheist and very passionate about environmental causes, that environmentalism is her religion. I don’t think the person who said it was pulling a Hugh, though I don’t think it was said in a malicious way either. I wish I’d been there; I’d have pointed out (’cause I love a good debate) that the statement was backward. Environmentalism is the opposite of religion; it’s how we conduct ourselves in response to a set of facts and theory based in science, as opposed to faith in a fictional work. Passion, zeal, overreaction…these reactions are common to environmentalists and depletists just as it does to atheists and theists, but the basis and foundation for religion and the basis for environmentalism couldn’t be further apart. The “_________ is your religion” canard is just a way of deflecting rational debate. And, sadly, we usually fall for it.
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Today in line at the grocery store we were behind a guy buying candy for Hallowe’en. I don’t think he’d done it before, though, ’cause he’d just filled a plastic bag with chocolate bars. Not the bulk treats you can buy, mind you, but the full-sized versions. They weren’t in any order, and he didn’t know how many he had, so the cashier had to scan each one of them individually. Well, she didn’t have to; she could’ve scanned one kind several times, but she was a kid, so she shouldn’t have had to figure that out. Anyway, after 50 bars or so she finally finishes up…and the guy starts arguing about the price. He claims that they were on sale — 3 bars for $1.44 — but the cash register said $0.48 each. The cashier may have failed speed-checking, but she knew enough math to explain that $0.48 cents is the right price. The guy persists and goes to fetch a flyer. Finally, between the cashier, her supervisor and the withering glares coming from my wife, myself and the poor woman in front of us who only had a pear and some cheese, he got the message and paid. Then my wife decided to get her funny on:
cashier: Hi there. Double bag?
dan: No, that’s ok, we can put everything in our backpacks.
nellie: By the way, we also have 40 loose chocolate bars.
cashier: [cold look of fear]
nellie: Just kidding.
cashier: [nervous laughter; color returns to face]
[tags]layer cake, sir nicholas stern, global warming[/tags]
Sorry about the lack of blogging over the past couple of days. I’ve been kind of heads-down with work, errands and this stats assignment. The assignment’s mostly done though, so I can relax for a few days.
Today we ran around town doing a bunch of things:
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We also watched a movie called Stardom (imdb | rotten tomatoes), directed by Denys Arcand and starring (rowr) Jessica Pare. It wasn’t great, but I laughed at the parts where they skewered celebrity culture. My favourite: the “Annual Slalom for Bosnia” charity event.
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The religious right is whipping the TV industry like a rented mule. Beating it like a red-headed stepchild. Smacking it like it stole something. NBC has agreed not to show Madonna singing a song from atop a cross during her TV special, airing next month.
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From tederick we find this story about a woman who experienced the feeling of lightning shooting out her ass. Zowie! Is there anything Croatians can’t do?
By the way, kudos to tederick for the use of a post-carbonite-Han quote. Don’t try that at home, kids.
[tags]world press photo, condo, quail and firkin, all the best, stardom, nbc, madonna, tederick, ass lightning, han, carbonite[/tags]
Today had been supermega cleaning day. Our apartment has been neglected and, as such, has turned on us. There’s still more fun to be had, like ripping the cat hair out of the carpet, but it’s nice to have a (somewhat) livable environment again.
Really, we’re just phoning it in now. Our condo is set to be ready for us by early April, and we just don’t care about the place we’re in anymore. It’s a rental, so we’re not destroying the place or anything, but there’s not exactly a pride of ownership right now either.
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Day Night Day Night, one of our favourite films at this year’s TIFF, has won the award for best feature film at the Woodstock Film Festival. I’m glad; it deserves more attention than it got here in Toronto.
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Scott Adams is at it again. This time he thinks he has an idea that will win him next year’s Nobel prizes for both peace and economics. It relates to the old no-two-countries-who-have-a-McDonald’s-have-ever-gone-to-war maxim, which is really just a symptom. Open trade with a country makes it much harder to go to war with them (unless you plan to overrun them completely). For example, the US will never attack China; Wal-Mart gets most of their cheap goods from China and would likely go out of business, or at the very least drastically increase their prices.
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Late last night we watched Henry Fool (imdb | rotten tomatoes), the precursor to Fay Grim, another film we saw at this year’s festival. It was good, but I think I was expecting the style of Fay Grim, which was far more frenetically paced. And, of course, I wish there could have been more focus on Parker Posey, but I guess the title should have made it obvious that there wouldn’t be. I would definitely recommend watching Henry Fool before watching Fay Grim, though; it would’ve helped us out a lot.
[tags]day night day night, scott adams, dilbert, henry fool, fay grim[/tags]
Skirl | Dan Dickinson 