Author: admin

Yesterday afternoon was an interesting one…I finally had the time (and motivation) to head back to the swimming pool after a month’s hiatus due to final exam time as well as Christmas holidays. Perhaps inspired by James’ entry on his workout schedule, I decided to embark on a cold walk down the street where the wind was ripping through my ears like a sheet in the wind. Unfortunately, I had no access to a toque or gloves yesterday, however Vero made me realize that I should have just borrowed one for her. That is true, that probably could have formed into a ‘smart idea’.

Upon hitting up the pool, I got in, did the stretches and dunked my head in and realized what a difference the salt water filter they installed has made! Instead of a shroud of chlorine as thick as Toronto’s skyline, I could clearly see to the end of the pool. I could also see the bottom of the pool (which is five feet below the water level.) No joke, the chlorine prevented me from seeing the bottom before. Ugh. Salt-water filters are the cats meow. Sure I have a minor salt taste in my mouth, but it’s a lot better than some chlorine.

After dogging it for the 90 laps, I ended up with a few muscle cramps I had to massage out, and the regular workout took me an extra 15 minutes. Am I disappointed? Not really. I suppose I could have expected that the regular workout would take longer than usual.

So, 4:30 has hit, and it is time to leave the pool and head over to Vero’s for a bite to eat before class. I grab my towel out of the locker and hop in the shower. I hop out of the shower, head to the locker and BLAMO! It hits me.

“Hey, where’s the key to the padlock?”

Usually, (as in every time I’ve ever swam), they end up next to my goggles on the bench outside the shower. There was no one else in the shower with me, so it couldn’t have been stolen. Sadly, I realized that I must have locked them in the locker. After hauling on my wet swim trunks onto my dry body (ack!), I head outside of the washroom to the girl reading a magazine and say in French “I seem to have locked my keys in the locker. I’m sorry. Can we get it open?”

She then phones someone and asks for a ‘passe-partout’ and I think ‘What does a TV show have to do with this situation?” but then realize that this may be code word for some kind of lockpick. 😉 I go and sit in the locker room for awhile until my saviour arrives, takes a look at the lock, notices that it’s on #9 locker and heads back out to find a key.

Suspicion #1: Hey, why does he remark on the locker number when all these padlocks are just given to me from a basket on the front desk every time I go for a swim? The padlock doesn’t correspond to a locker number! I can choose any locker number I want!

Anyhow, while waiting for the guy (let’s call him Bruno for ease of use) again, a gentleman comes in, talks for awhile about where we work and whatnot and moves onto the gym. Nice guy, glad he killed some time for me. Here I am just standing there like a goof with my wet swimming trunks.

Bruno comes back with the key. Yee-ha! I can finally get out of here! Inserts the key, jiggles it, moves it to and fro…aww man, it ain’t working! Surprise Surprise Bruno! At this point, he rambles something in French to me that I literally cannot make out so I just say “Non.”. When in doubt, say no. Rule of thumb. Actually, this doesn’t apply to all cases. If you are in a bar, and someone is smiling to you while passing you a beer, say ‘yes’ if you don’t understand what they are saying.

I tell Bruno that the padlock isn’t for locker #9 as the front desk just gives me any old padlock. He says this is not the case and runs back to get another key. Good lord!

Suspicion #2: What the heck man? I’m not getting out of here anytime soon! I have to MacGyver my way out of this mess!

So I think about the fact that if I did leave the key in my locker, chances are, it’s on the bottom of the locker. So I pull on the door a little at the bottom so I can get my pinky finger inside and search the perimeter. Sadly, no sign of a key. This is odd! I poke and prod and find my schoolbag strap and yank on it thinking it may dislodge the key from its hiding place. No such luck. What the heck?! This doesn’t make sense!

Then my mind starts going over it logically. I never leave the key in there, and if I did, it would have been on the bottom of the locker. I decide to search the room once again. I have already done this but I figure it doesn’t hurt to try again. I check the shower, nope. I check the bench, no. I check the floor. No dice. I then think of the logical progression of the key falling from the bench and upon closer examination, I find the key lodged in between slats on the bench! SUCCESS!

After 30 minutes of waiting around, I manage to finally open up the locker, tell the girl at the front desk to cancel Bruno and thank him, and I’m on my way to a bitter cold night outside. Good thing my hair had enough time to dry! Perhaps this was the reason for the locker mishap!

iplaying: Crocodile Rock – Elton John (Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Only the Piano Player)

Last night I went to my first class of Interpersonal Communications which seems like a snoozfest so far. So far, we’ve talked about how humans interact with one another – I say something, you respond! YAY! Man…I cannot believe this is a required course. It will be interesting to get to the point where I get to actually CHOOSE the courses I wish to take. Will I go into some cool courses like video production? That would be pretty swell. Who knows where I will go with it.

After class, I hung around Vero’s for awhile in anticipation of the great night which laid before us – Salsa Dancing! I have been salsa dancing a few times with Vero before and I’ll say that I’m an alright dancer, but I can say that there are certain salsa movements that just elude my feet. It just won’t happen.

So then, Vero gets frustrated and then I try harder. Now, in my defence, I had some huge winter boots on the dance floor last night as this was a last minute thing. Think someone dancing in Sorels – or just think of any good ole small town dance. 😉 If I had my proper shoes, I’m sure I would have been a smash hit on the floor.

Anyhow, Vero has called us ‘incompatible for dancing’ which I think she only gets away with because I couldn’t figure out this certain foot movement of salsa! Give me the other latin dances where all I have to do is swing the woman around and voila! I am a pro. At least in my mind when I watch reruns of Dirty Dancing. Speaking of which, Vero’s sister watched Dirty Dancing 2 a few times and likes it, but has never seen the original. Is there not some rule against watching a sequel before watching the original?

iplaying: Wicked Come Winter (Matt Mays & El Torpedo – Matt Mays & El Torpedo)

Holy mackerel, they have the Consumer Electronics Show on right now and they have unveiled the coolest, bestest ever cellular phone ever…the ZACH MORRIS PHONE!

This amazing piece of techno-wizardry has a range of 10 feet from its base station, but who cares? It’s wireless! Plus, it has easy to use buttons for those with big fingers (and unless you are a smaller-than-average person, then this phone is for you!).

I personally cannot wait to get my hands on this gem. The news stations are going crazy with the talk of this new phone on the market!

Is that a RED button on its faceplate? I THINK SO!

Some of my friends are hooked on some other phone that debuted yesterday, but they live in the past. This is the future!

“Oh, global warming is killing the planet! Look at the lack of snow!”

“The apocalypse is coming! Along with his horsemen of no-snow!”

“Hey, is that a puddle in my yard?”

Sure, these are things that I’ve heard all over the place this winter. All with the tagline about global warming.

I call bullshit on all this gobbledygook talk about global warming affecting this year temperatures.

Alright, alright, ya got me, I have no proof. I can’t make ludicrous statements like “Global warming doesn’t affect the temperatures!!!” or “James’s new TV is the cats meow!” or “Matt is a uber-geek!” without any proof.

I just think that these weather specialists/global warming enthusiasts are jumping the gun a little here. It’s only one mild winter – granted, it’s never been seen before. But what is everyone going to be saying if we get the normal winters we’ve had for the next seven years? “Oh, I suppose it was just an off-winter.”

If next year is the same, THEN I’ll start thinking something is awry. But for now, I’m sticking to my guns and not jumping them.

…however…I am a fan of environmental consciousness and do agree that the citizens of this fair world needs to change their habits to help with climate change, and whatever other environmental problems we cause. I do agree that global warming is taking place…that’s a fer sure. We have to stop it. What we need to do is create a bio-dome of sorts to start it off right. First, I shall watch a Pauly Shore movie to get some knowledge base.

So, back to the weather specialists…are they jumping the gun? YES!
Are they the smartest people in the world by using the weather to get their point across to the general population that we are messing up the world and that we should fix things? Yes, most definitely.

iplaying: Somersault – Zero 7 (When It Falls)

I am updating my blog (read: catchup) but I am tagging the entries from the dates stemming from Christmas vacation. So it’s in your best interest to scroll down to find the entries starting from December 23 and read onwards. You will have to click on the Archives on the right hand side and choose December 2006 to go back that far.

Let’s recap:
Supposedly Matt had people over on New Year’s Eve and failed to get his beloved MythTV system working in time for the countdown.

This waged a war of MythTV vs. Windows Media Center with James and Matt.

James’ Argument Here
Matt’s Argument Here

Now, while I’m not about to get in between the two of them on which system is better, the REAL question is why the heck the both of them weren’t smart enough to just plug a television set into the wall considering Matt has Rogers High Speed Cable? He would definitely get a few channels at least. Who knows…maybe Matt doesn’t actually own a television set anymore, then that squashes my idea.

Remember how I said my wiper blades worked beautifully on the way up? Well, the opposite held true on the way back down. I have no idea how this happened, but somehow a metal bit of the wiper escaped the plastic and created a nice scratch in my windshield. Boy, was I happy. I am now pondering whether or not to write a letter to Canadian Tire or to the Manufacturer. Perhaps I should phone Mom to find out what I should do. (5 minutes later) Mom’s Verdict: Contact Canadian Tire. See what they will do. In all, it doesn’t look like the scratch is that bad. Perhaps there is something that can remove a scratch? Anyhow, I have yet to go into the store and complain. I am a procrastinator to the end.

What does the new year bring me? Well, I don’t anticipate many changes from the last year. I hope to continue my further education taking night courses. Sometimes it wears on me, but I hope I can make it through until 2009. Things are going well with Vero so far and I doubt that will change. However, there will be changes in the new year as she ends her life as a student and has to make the transition to slacker in the real world. Life with Mike is excellent as well and I don’t think much will change there, other than the fact that I will hit him up to bring me to grocery store all the time with his new wheels. I think 2007 will be interesting to see Philippe grow up from a boy who can’t speak, to a terror machine on two feet. That will be awesome. I would like to say that I will see my friends more and more this year, but I’ve come to terms that school has really taken up a lot of my life in the past year which has hindered my friend-seeing. I don’t see that changing much this year. I hope to pay off my debts this year so I can start making new ones – perhaps finishing the basement in the house. I also hope to start my trek with Troy on the recording process and lay down some excellent tunes. Oh yes, and my love of songwriting is to return in 2007. I hope to fuel the beast with more reading – I want to branch out of my traditional reading habits and hit up biographies, world history, and some classics. Sitting in an office all day long doesn’t fuel the songwriting beast.

Best to all in 2007. To those who had a crappy 2006, it can only get better. 😉

New Year’s Eve brought another hot tub adventure in my life and some ironing which Mike didn’t bother doing for me. We headed out to the Centre des Loisirs for New Year’s Eve this year as Mike’s dad was playing in the band that night. Excellent times would be had! We arrived, got a drink and sat down with some of Mike’s extended family and friends. All in all, I had a great night, but I must admit that it felt strange being the youngest there. This isn’t a common youngster event – unlike the stag and doe’s of yesteryear where you couldn’t walk three feet without meeting someone else you knew!

I ended up doing the mop of shame as I had spilled Carol’s drink onto the dance floor. I found this pretty unfair as I had done such a great job until she emerged from the washroom and that was the moment where my hand felt the need to let go. Doh! So we have some excellent photos with me and the mop.

After much dancing (in my awful, much needed to be replaced shoes) and a great midnight buffet (best way to cure the hangover the next day!) and some excellent tunes (Mony Mony – Uncensored), we retired for the night. I ended up back at home hoping to see my buddy Randy who was in town, but alas, he had taken off to Timmins that day so I didn’t manage to see him during the holidays. I ended up having a brewski with Maureen, John and Julie but then decided to return to my slumber.

The next day had me lazing around…wait a second! That didn’t happen at all…during the night an entire foot of snow had fallen and my parents were coming back that afternoon so it was up to me to save the day and snowblow the driveway! After contemplating taking the four-wheeler out with the plow, I thought better of it and hauled out the snowblower. Before that I slipped myself into a nice one-piece snowsuit and had an excellent hat – lined with fur and had the earflaps. Dad had a good laugh when I showed up later that night with it on as I had it on backwards! I swear it only happened the once!

Anyhow, starting the snowblower was a pain. I had to eventually bring the extension cord out and electric start it and even that was a pain. In hindsight, I don’t think I had the choke wide open which hindered my operation. Eventually it roared to life and I trekked up and down the driveway. There’s a good feeling when you blow a driveway which isn’t your own. Mind you, I don’t really have that problem as my best neighbour ever Barry kindly snowblows my driveway during the winter. Granted, this didn’t need to happen this year yet, and now with Mike owning a truck, there isn’t really much driveway to shovel.

Maureen and John have decided to move back to Kapuskasing. I wish them the best as they return in February! I selfishly wish they would go to North Bay so I would have a rest stop between Kapuskasing and North Bay, but alas, it is not in the cards. Anyhow, best of luck Maureen and John!

The day after beer and wing night brought back what I really wanted to do during the holidays – ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. My parents had trekked down to Toronto for a few days and with my boyfriend duties of visiting Hearst out of the way, I realized that this was ‘me-time’. That’s right, Palmer Day(s) were here!

I had decided to start out by scavenging the scraps of Christmas dinner like the raven that I am. My mood settled in on a scrumptious hot turkey sandwich. With the assistance of Maureen, I identified the greatest sauce that the sandwich would need and then heated it up and applied it to the tasty treat. Satisfied, I then decided to head to the video store to rent a bunch of movies to last me two days. I then settled on their ‘Buy 2, Get 2 Free’ deal even though each movie was $20. In the end, I still got 4 movies for $40 plus the thought of returning a few to Blockbuster in the future when they have their minimum $8 back deal. I ended up picking up Walk the Line, Superman Returns, V For Vendetta, and Munich.

As I settled in for the rest of the day on the couch, I adjusted the heat perfectly, got a drink and nibbled on some turkey before popping in the first flick.

Superman Returns: Alright, let’s start it off with a bang! I can honestly say that I never grew up with Superman like other kids did. I have only seen the four movies in the past year and Eric introduced me to Smallville in the past year. All in all, I am a Superman fan now and was anxiously waiting to see what the new movie had to offer, ESPECIALLY since it was helmed by Bryan Singer of X-Men fame. Superman Returns takes place after Superman II (by the way, check out the Richard Donner cut of the film…SOOO much better than the original.) and brings Superman back into a world which may not need him. Two thumbs up for this flick, I enjoyed the new cast taking on the old characters and the film is very much in the spirit of the original Supes.

Walk The Line: Johnny Cash biopic concerning his love for June Carter and his struggle with addiction to some narcotic. All in all, for drug related biopics, I enjoyed Ray better than this. I may even return this one to Blockbuster. It wasn’t a bad film, but I didn’t feel connected to the character of Cash and his struggle with love and narcotics. Meh. Would I recommend seeing this film however? Sure. It’s a decent flick.

Pirates of the Caribean 2: Now, I don’t know if it’s the fact that I watched this in three different portions (one of which was after beer and wings night so I may have dozed through a few parts) but I didn’t enjoy this one nearly as much as the first film. Especially the ending…buh. You know, if you’re going to try and pull of a connected sequel like Empire/Return or Matrix Reloaded/Revolutions, you gotta have a killer revelation at the end of the second film followed by some enormous cliffhanger. Sure, the cliffhanger was decent, but there was no revelation. It left me with a taste of ‘Stay tuned next time to find out what happens to Captain Jack Sparrow and his band of merry men.” I also felt that this film felt more like the Secret of Monkey Island for the sheer “Well, I need this item to get to this item, I need to perform this task, to win back the heart of this lass.” All in all…maybe I should watch this movie again in one shot.

Munich: Whoa! Munich blew me away with its sheer awesomeness. It was around 10 at night after three movies and I figured I wouldn’t stay awake for 3 hours more but it captivated me and I didn’t look away once. Munich deals with an Israeli secret task force who hunts down the killers involved in the Munich 1972 Olympics were some…Palestinians (? I’m pretty sure they were…can’t recall now…) killed all the Israeli Olympians. So the Israeli government secretly funds this task force to eliminate all those involved. This is based on a true story so I would be interested in getting the book based on it. Pretty intriguing and I was surprisededly interested considering that I’m not one for world issues and whatnot, but I think that is slowly changing in me. I realize that I should be aware of my surroundings. Anyhow, back to the film, WATCH IT!

Throughout the two days spent watching movies, I may have consumed three other hot turkey sandwiches. This was the life…where I didn’t have to think about preparing a meal. I am fortunate that I am not one of those people who hate to eat the same thing all the time.

Oh, the beloved beer and wing night at the Losier’s happened once again this year. I would like to send a great thanks out to Vero for allowing me to leave Hearst to attend this grand event!

30 pounds of wings later, we were all content on the good job done out in the garage. I aided (in a meager fashion) to apply the sauce to the wings. The Losier’s have a pretty good setup actually – the beer is downstairs and easily accessible, and the deep fryer for the wings is outside. Once the wings are cooked, they are thrown into three difference sauces – hot, thai and…hmm…can’t recall the last one. Some sort of sweet&sour mixture I believe. Then we cart the wings inside, throw them into this slow cooker that has individual slots and then everyone has a basket to place their wings into.

The judgement of how many wings to cook for 30 people is a tough gamble because there is definitely a bigger demand at the beginning than at the end of a 10 batch cycle. We were going to open the other 20 pounds of wings but Bruce thought better of it and decided to see if the 30 pounds would do the trick. Indeed they did.

After dinner, Louise & Sam had created this excellent Powerpoint Presentation to display the lyrics to a plethora of songs so that everyone could take part in singing. In total, there were a good 4-5 guitars in the room at one time, a piano and I believe someone was trying to play drums with their chicken wings. This was a gathering of musical minds is all about! We hammered through a lot of the tunes we all knew, and then listened intently when there were a few that only few people could play. The highlight of the night for me is when Bruce went into some improvisational jazz number which had me in awe. Well, really, he has me in awe whenever he plays. I hope to be of his calibre one day in the future.

The night quieted down after a few hours of playing and we sat there taking it all in.