30.9.02 ... reading time

ingest Ex Libris, Ross King imbibe Gravity, Our Lady Peace

Yesterday, I made my first foray into the wonderful world of the historical murder-mystery. I have never been a fan of the murder mystery generally, but Ex Libris is about books, so I couldn't resist. Now, I'm completely absorbed, I can barely put it down, and I'm thanking the stars that I have the day off so that I can continue to feed the addiction.

Sebastian goes in to be neutered tonight. We took him in for his rabies shot on Friday and made the mistake of leaving the kitty carrier out in the living room because we knew we'd have to use it again today. Since it's been lying out all weekend, we're convinced that Heidi has told him all about what he can expect, which will make the "capture" particularly interesting this evening.

I stumbled upon a nice little script for organizing your photographs over at onfocus.com. It's called snapGallery, and it does neat things with picture display. I wish I'd known about it before I embarked on the JavaScript journey myself, I would have saved myself many a frustrated evening.   [ œ .. ]

27.9.02 ... a beef, a project, and the five

The English Language: I'm very protective of it. I am that person who will correct your usage of a particular word if it's wrong. I am also the inhouse grammar person at work and at home, and I have been known to consult with various family members on grammar issues as they arise. So I applaud articles such as these, that attempt to set the record straight on some of the most common grammatical blunders and lapsus linguae. Oh and, did I mention that I am also a word minx? Which made reading this article particularly traumatic.

A massive project is underway to merge the former homelinks and worklinks. Stay tuned for the very large page of links that will result, and is, as yet, unnamed. In fact, how's this for interacting with your 3-person audience: send me suggestions on what the tasty fusion should be called and you shall be mentioned right here, on these auspicious pages, even if I don't like your suggestion. Now that's generous.

Here's today's five:

1. What are your favorite ways to relax and unwind? Having a nice long meal with good company and a glass of wine. And the standard favourites: reading a book, having a nap, soaking in the bath.

2. What do you do the moment you get home from work? Check the answering machine, go through the mail, play with the cats, have a cup of tea.

3. What are your favorite aromatherapeutic smells? Lavender. I'm a fiend for it. Michael maintains that I "went a little funny" in Provence last year, what with all the lavender everywhere. Orange blossom, citrus and eucalyptus are other favourites.

4. Do you feel more relaxed with a group of friends or hanging out by yourself? By myself.

5. What is something that you feel is relaxing but most people don't? Ironing. Not the rushed, early morning kind, but the kind you do on a Sunday after finishing a whole batch of laundry.   [ œ .. ]

26.9.02 ... bits and pieces

News & observations, this one is going to be fairly disjointed:

:: Brand! new! logo! Much time was spent deciding between Arial and Litterbox. I'm pleased with the way the Arial version turned out and hope you are too!

:: My friends Meredith and Xavier are moving to Bristol from Auxerre. Meredith got a wicked job doing something she will be very happy doing, I'm sure. Yay for Meredith! Now we have yet another reason why that trip to England just must be made.

:: Just found out about the Best British Blog 2002 competition. Is there any other national blog sparring going on that I should know about?

:: My Birkenstocks have been delivered and having not put on a *new* pair of Birks in 7 years, my feet have fallen in love all over again, and 24° C today means this might just be my last chance to wear them this year.

:: TorontoPerforms is a great resource if you are looking to do anything remotely cultural in this city.

:: A happy subway operator can make an otherwise boring and anonymous trip much more enjoyable. On my way home yesterday, I had the pleasure of getting into a train that was being operated by the quirkiest operator I've ever travelled with; just as the train approached Bloor station, he made this announcement: "Ladies and Gentlemen: the Toronto Transit Commission have just informed us that all passengers leaving the train at Bloor station are required to smile and have a nice evening." No biggie, but everyone who did disembark at that stop indeed had a smile on their faces and were a bit more courteous to their fellow travellers.

:: Doing a good deed is the best way to end a bad day. On Tuesday evening, I picked up Michael after work and since we'd both had respectively bad days, we didn't say much to each other on the drive home and instead listened to our favourite tracks from All that you can't Leave Behind (#4 his, #9 mine) to cheer ourselves up. We stopped at our neighbourhood grocery store, and I ran in to get some milk while Michael stayed in the car, still listening. A somewhat disoriented guy approached the car and asked if we could give him a boost since his battery was toast and he'd obviously approached a few people who had turned him down (hopefully only because they didn't have jumper cables) because he was far more distraught than he should have been, given that his problem was easily fixable with the right equipment. So we gave him the boost and he couldn't thank us enough and just as we were about to pull away he called out "you guys have made my day" and Michael and I looked at each other thinking: suddenly our day has just gotten better.   [ œ .. ]

24.9.02 ... what they're searching for - issue 1

Most people who read the me pages know me. But I do get the occasional visit from a random seeker who arrives here thanks to at least one of the many quirks of search engine indexing. Here are ten such searches. If these keep getting interesting, I'll have to make this a regular feature.

- pictures of louise rennison
- alan paton critics
- biblical of cry the beloved country
- algonquin park jobs
- card tricks textbooks canada
- english radio paris jobs
- higher notes on the hobbit
- october 2 1996 - toronto sun - section two- restaurant- cynthia
- slut debutante
- spanking page   [ œ .. ]

23.9.02 ... [forgot the] friday five

1. Would you say that you're good at keeping in touch with people? If they are on email, yes. If not, no. I'm terrible with the telephone. I have to-do lists in my organizer reminding me of who I need to call, but these lists remain in my organizer, unchecked. I'm also really bad with returning calls. If you are waiting for me to call you back, I'm sorry. You might be waiting a while.

2. Which communication method do you usually prefer/use: e-mail, telephone, snail mail, blog comments, or meeting in person? Why? Per question 1, email over telephone for sure. Where in-person meetings can be arranged, those are best I guess. Probably because most of the people I am in email correspondence with live far away and I don't get to see them often.

3. Do you have an instant messenger program? How many? Why/why not? How often do you use it? Used to use Yahoo Instant Messenger. I uninstalled the program when it started doing bad things to my computer. Once that happened, I couldn't be bothered trying to find an IM program that both me and my computer could live with.

4. Do most of your close friends live nearby or far away? Far away.

5. Are you an "out of sight, out of mind" person, or do you believe that "distance makes the heart grow fonder"? Neither, really. I haven't forgotten friends who have moved away, or who I have moved away from. But I don't think being away from them makes me like them more. I'd like them nice and close, thank you very much.   [ œ .. ]

20.9.02 ... victory and release

I always pride myself on being a good little bargain sleuth, never having to pay full price for anything. Here's my latest victory: cheap Birkenstock guy was on campus yesterday (the Birks are cheap, not the guy, Les. Les is very nice) and I scored a new pair of Milanos for $74. That's Canadian. It was an especially good moment for me not just due to the excitement of a serendipitious bargain, but also because this summer, I made the decision to live with what Birkenstocks I had, until next summer at the latest.

Here's what I've been working with: this pair (in purple, not even on the design chart anymore), bought in 1992 and sold at my parents' garage sale for $2 this summer; this pair, received as a present in 1995, resoled in 2000, currently beyond further resoling and therefore relegated to the back of the closet this year, where they wait in anticipation for future camping trips; and this pair in tan (also off the design chart), affectionately referred to as "the duckbills" on account of them looking like two ducks' bills, bought in 1994 and still in use. Since I was down to one pair this summer, I knew that I would have to bite the bullet next summer and fork over the $120 for new Milanos (easily, my favourite). So, hearing that Les was on campus, peddling his wares at such reasonable prices, I could not afford to miss the opportunity. And here's how nice Les is: he didn't have my size so he is bringing them to campus next week from his store in downtown Hamilton. So, if you need Birkenstock and live anywhere in southwestern Ontario, why not let Les hook you up?

Releases of different incarnations this week: two, via BookCrossing; three, on The Mirror Project.   [ œ .. ]

16.9.02 ... how it went

Well, TIFF is over. We had a great time, it was far more structured this year than it ever has been for us (in the past, it was usually me, squeezing in a rush-ticket screening between classes). For all the details, here's the post-mortem, as promised.

I taught my first major class last week (read: more than 35 people in the room). It was a first year English class and the instructor promised 180 students, but only about 100 showed. She should never have warned them that a *librarian* was going to conduct the session, I guess. While 100 kids made it to the class, about 50 stayed to the end, and only after much admonishing from one of the TAs who stood up just as the mass exodus was beginning, to say - look, this is good stuff here, you need to know this. I just about ran over and hugged her (I thought first years don't know yet that they can actually get up and leave a class) and promised many juicy offerings should they stay. Long story short: everything that could possibly go wrong with the technology DID go wrong: the projector wouldn't project, the software wouldn't open, the microphone batteries wouldn't cooperate, and the remote mouse wouldn't scroll. So, there I was, old-fashioned microphone in one hand, typing and scolling with the other, on a back-up HTML version of a presentation that was littered with broken links, in front of a classroom full of bored and grumpy kids who'd just been told-off by their TA. Who the hell was Murphy and why did he have to have a law anyway?   [ œ .. ]

6.9.02 ...

I have my right hand back! It's stiff and sore and a different colour than my other hand, but it's back and it's all mine and now that I know what it's like to have a cast, I don't need to ever have one again, thank you. I can barely write yet, but at least I can mouse and I can type, and those are the really important things, aren't they? The appointment was far more quick and painless than I thought it would be, I didn't even need another x-ray once they cut the cast off, so I was saved the extra radiation (four x-rays in three weeks is more than enough radiation).

I should never have discovered that there are a lot of people out there who are writing interesting and intelligent things; I installed NextBlog on my links toolbar, and now I can't get anything done.   [ œ .. ]

5.9.02 ... daily filmography

More on the Advance Ticketing debacle I mentioned. The draw for which orders get processed first happened last Thursday and box 29 got chosen. Our orders got into box 27. So only about 25 people were worse off than we were. How's that for a "half-full" take on things.

We were pleasantly surprised to find that even though we could almost not have been in a worse position, we still managed to walk away with 1 of our first choice picks, and 8 second choice selections. Michael only had to choose one film on the spot, and even that proved to be a decent experience, thanks to a helpful sales person - group cheer for volunteers everywhere.

So here's a lineup of what we will be spending the next few evenings watching:

- Sept. 6th, 8.45pm      :. Secretary
- Sept. 7th, 9.30am      :. Take Care of my Cat
- Sept. 7th, 12.30pm    :. The Intended
- Sept. 7th, 6.30pm      :. The Man without a Past
- Sept. 8th, 3.00pm      :. La Turbulence des Fluides
- Sept. 9th, 9.15pm      :. Black and White
- Sept. 10th, 10.00pm  :. Aiki
- Sept. 12th, 9.00pm    :. Le Fils
- Sept. 13th, 9.00pm    :. Cul de Sac: A Suburban War Story
- Sept. 14th, 2.15pm    :. Punch-Drunk Love

Stay tuned for the complete report, sometime after the festival.   [ œ .. ]

4.9.02 ... packing, stacking, loading, moving

My parents moved last Friday. The movers arrived at 9am and unloaded the last box at 11.30pm. Yes, it took a little longer than the estimated 9 hours. All went fairly smoothly, and at least one major hiccup was avoided. We loaded one large and one smaller truck, and as soon as they pulled into the street and parked the really big one in front of the new house, it died. So the poor moving guys had to schlep all the stuff from further than they would have liked, but on the up-side, at least the truck died at the destination.

The new house is great - lots of character, a great big back yard, friendly neighbours (who offered to help right away), and all this on a quiet little cul-de-sac. With all the renos my folks have planned (and have already sunk their teeth into), the place is going to be a little gem. Watch for before and after pictures.

All this house talk (and interest-rate-hike buzz) has got Michael and I all keyed up to use our pre-approved mortgage about a year before schedule. So we took Monday to tool around the city and figure out where we'd like to live. We really didn't get beyond the Annex and High Park; we love both neighbourhoods, and both provide decent access to the highway for me (the latter being better in that aspect). So now: a trustworthy real estate agent. An oxymoron perhaps? If you have one in the Toronto area you can recommend, you really should let us know. If we like and end up using him/her, you can expect much lauding and extolling of your name right here.   [ œ .. ]