I occasionally forget how good It’s A Shame About Ray by The Lemonheads is. My Nomad just randomly reminded me by playing the cover of “Mrs. Robinson”.

My friend Bigfoot introduced me to The Lemonheads in university, along with getting me hooked on the Screaming Trees‘ Sweet Oblivion, so…thanks man.

Holy mother of crap. As a former database guy this freaks me out: rumour is that Wal-Mart will be gathering as much as 7.5 terabytes of data every day from their RFID operations.

[via]

Back at work this morning. Feels like I’ve been away for a month. I forgot my Blackberry on the coffee table and left my Nomad on the bookshelf; it’s like I’ve forgotten how to get ready for work.

The prof said the exam marks should be up pretty soon. For the first time in this program I’m nervous.

You may notice something new on the right: the last ten things I’ve bought (or watched, in the case of a movie). The formatting bugs are still being worked out, so please forgive any ugly scrolling or margin issues.

It’s still freakin’ hot. Last night at dinner (Fieramosca again) I felt like I was sweating right through my shirt.

I’m back up to 224 pounds again. Not surprising; I just spent a week on course, mostly eating and sitting still, and before that I was studying so much that I hadn’t seriously exercised in weeks. The weather right now isn’t exactly ideal for outside activity, so I’m hoping to get back into the treadmill routine in the next two weeks, before we leave for London.

Mother-in-law left today. I now feel like I can unpack & clean.

To escape the heat we saw a movie last night before dinner: Mr. & Mrs. Smith (imdb | rotten tomatoes), which wasn’t nearly as bad as it could’ve been. It was enjoyable for a summer blockbuster “comedy”, and in any case I’d pay a few bucks to watch a giant Angelina Jolie for two hours.

Worth watching.

Not to sound insensitive, but why are people surprised when they suburbanize wilderness areas with, oh I don’t know, say…golf courses, and the wildlife wanders onto the property? The bear probably isn’t aware that he’d not supposed to walk on the greens, or use the running trails, and being grizzlies, they’re likely to hurt (or kill, in this case) somebody.

[Globe and Mail: survivors felt Grizzly ‘was stalking us’]

Let’s be clear: if I’m standing in my kitchen fixing a snack, and you decide to stroll in the front door, remove the fridge and start eating my cheerios, I’m going to do something about it.

People still buy music at HMV?

Finished the course this morning, got back after lunch.

I’m listening to the new White Stripes now. New Coldplay‘s next.

I just finished watching Dead Again (imdb | rotten tomatoes). I have no idea how it got on my Zip list. It was pretty bad, certainly not worthy of Kenneth Branagh or Emma Thompson. Or Wayne Knight, for that matter.

The exam this morning was ok. Harder than the sample exam I did, but not nearly as bad as it could have been. I’d guess that I scored somewhere around between 60 and 70, which would make me perfectly happy. I just do not want to take that course again.

A handful of us stuck around for lunch (I actually skipped lunch and scarfed my first dessert of the week), but after saying some goodbyes I just wanted to get the hell out of there. I climbed into the cab, queued the Arcade Fire album and closed my eyes.

Being outside for the first time in days I’ve noticed that it’s hotter than the hubs of hell out there. I subway’d up to All The Best for some goodies and ended up impulse buying some Greg’s roasted marshmallow ice cream. The cashier asked me if I wanted a spoon just in case it melted before I got home; I told her that if it came to that I’d drink the tub dry.

Anyway, I now have the place to myself as the wife & mother-in-law have left for a girls night. A nice man brought me pizza. I’m relaxing, catching up on news & playing with the cats. I look forward to reading the paper tomorrow morning and going for a meaningless stroll (unless it’s the seventh layer of hell out there again) just for the hell of it.

Sadly, this weekend is about all the spare time I can muster. Since my Europe trip is in two weeks I have to get the first assignment done early, which means starting Monday.