corsets with instructions...

i have fleeting moments of time when i can post, so forgive my random trains of thoughts that may or may not make sense.

i'm helping a friend out with a project of hers, where she wants a few of us in a portrait picture and asked me to bring my LBD (little black dress) over to show her pre-picture. so i was over there and she suggested that i wear a corset or tummytucker thing under my dress (without saying i'm chunky there, but really we all know what it means...) so during lunchtime i ran over to the mall (rushed mall shopping is not a pasttime of mine, feels so pressured...)

in any case i'm in a changing room with a few corset things. man it's intimindating. the correct way is that the corset hooks are on the back - i'm sure you've seen enough made-for-tv victorian style movies to kinda generally KNOW how that corset should look. there's no freaking way i can hook all 30 little hooks in place BEHIND me, as talented as i may be. so i hook the little hooks in front (bear with me) - which still took forever even though i'm SEEING what i'm doing - then i had to shimmy-shimmy my way into a song & dance and half slide half coerce the corset to turn backwards so it would be worn the right way. the corsets themselves have wire-like backbone stripes that holds the form of the corset properly, in the end it either poked into my skin in a dangerous location, or just plain - excuse the imagery - sausage-squeeze the extra skin & fat out from the ends of the corset. (lost your appetite yet?!)

in the end, i left the store without the corset or my pride, dignity or energy. i'll tell my friend tomorrow that i'll just hold my breath for the portrait and suck it all in. saves me 50$ and some amount of hard dangerous work of 30 little hooks, shimmy-ing around squeezing out of some plastic-wired corset. plus it allows me to keep some dignity.

i'm not a feminist who thinks the corset sets women's liberation back some years or anything; i just think these things should come with a picture step by step guide & instruction on how to put it on. i still can't figure out how one can do it alone - i need my Scarlet-O'hara help...

kiss of death

quite literally the Kiss of Death

that's pretty sad, though i don't really remember which thread of conversation on this blog i had, but i feel like in the recent years food allergies have become more rampant and also more severe...

thanksgiving weekend was relaxing, full of turkey, ham, stuffing and gravy - yum. watched football, went to yoga, played 4 hockey games... a good weekend. dragged myself back to work this morning.

will write more later, i know you're holding your breath ;)

New Brunswick? New Brunswick? COME ON!

Still have not seen my bike, nor has my bike shop. Check out the tracking info now. It was in Lachine a few days ago, then went to New Brunswick, and is now back here again. I am SO fed up. And now that it's snowing, that bike will not touch asphalt for a very long time. I haven't begun questioning where my wheels are. (damn Thanksgiving weekend.)

If you want to see the runaruond my bike has been getting... its been 14 days already!tracking # 1Z 116 T60 68 9835 524 0

suuperman

so, who has seen the new superman trailer? I saw at Harry Potter (which stunk) but the trailer made up for it. I saw the DC logo and I was like "oooh", then I hear Brando's voice "Even though you have been raised as a human being, you are not one of them..." WOOOOOOO! I wanted to start shouting :) I love that they're keeping the old John Williams theme, I love that they're re-visiting his childhood, I'm blown away that they're keeping Marlon Brando's voice for Jor-El, Eva-Marie Saint as Martha (North by Northwest), Kevin Spacey as Lex ... oh I can't wait I can't wait I can't wait!!!

My one irk: Kate Bosworth? I mean, sure she's cute but she ain't Lois Lane. Oddly enough, as soon as I wrote that I thought of one name: Sela Ward. sigh...

how much are you worth?

The Gazette had a hilarious article this morning about an informant to the RCMP who told them that he was offered 300,000$ for the life of one Paul Martin, Finance Minister in 2003. Vincent Brown, an accused cocaine trafficker said he didn't do it because "I felt I was being set up." hhahahaha

Aside from the fact that a)why would you hire a drug dealer to kill someone to y)what would you benefit from killing Paul Martin, my question is z)he's only worth 300,000$?

I'd like to think I'm worth at least a couple of G's on the black market...

what movie would your life be?

so i was thinking (dangerous i know, so i don't do it too often)...
if your life was a movie/tv show, what would it be? and what would you like it to be?

i guess i've been asked 'what do you want out of life?' , and to put it in perspective you kinda need to look at where you're at, how you got there, to contemplate where you're going (unless you're the type who already know - darn u!)

i guess it'd be boring if my life was a movie - who'd watch it...
but i think it's an interesting question...

let me kick this off, if my life was a movie, it'd be a bit like 50 First Dates cuz i don't remember most of the stuff i do in a day; people are puzzled at that, but honestly i don't remember stuff... it's a little like Mulan, but only cuz my disobedient defiant side (sans lucky cricket or punny sidekicking mini-dragon). alright i'm creatively handicapped at the moment, what do you think my life is like? and what's your life-movie??

splayds

not "spork". You can probably find this at any decent kitchenware store... (ie. that little place on St.Laurent near Second Cup) And since you're in Ontario why not check out Williams Sonoma? I love their stuff.

As for mr. chopsticks - I use them for most meals when I'm home. Eating rice or noodles without them is just wrong. So what's this "I cook Western" business?

plastic fork in my purse

i have no idea why, amongst the other junk in my purse, i've discovered the hidden treasure of a plastic fork in my purse.
come to think of it, it's oddly appropriate considering my motto in life is 'will work for food' and i can be bribed with food. although i guess a plastic fork isn't as classy as others who also have a fork/spoon but "born with a silver spoon" or such. but mock now, and if we're in an emergency situation where a plastic fork is needed, i'm totally on board and ready to go.

it's a rollout day today, which means we're pushing code to Production site again. exciting and un-nerving, but get to be on the frontlines with my team...

naked...

i feel naked without my belt. some friends waned to have a hella early breakfast get together (everyone dropped off like flies except me and 2 others) so i rushed outta the house and forgot my belt...

i used to never wear belts - tell me why i would want to emphasize a part of my body that needs NO EMPHASIS what-so-ever?! i need no highlight or accentuation in that area, please look away now...

i was about to tell the story about how ppl asked karen in high school what's the deal with my jeans - why are they skin-tight (and not in a good way). thankfully karen would defend me and say that my relatives from hong kong sent them and over there they had different concepts of 'fashion'. since high school we had uniforms, i totally didn't know how to dress myself when we had Free Dress Days. i thought clothes that fit well means that i can physically squeeze myself into that size. and that all clothing of the same size must mean i need to fit into all of them (if i were a size 6 at 1 store, i must be able to squeeze into size 6 in every store). yah, not a pretty picture. and to add to the pain let's stroll down memory lane to remeber that BODYSUITS were in - yup, it's like a ballet leotard mixed with baby's body suit - not only was it unflattering for 99% of the population, but going to the bathroom beneath all the layers was hellish and require superhuman coordination, 4 buttons and a very small bathroom stall.

so i'm finally grown up enough to recently splurge on 2 pairs of FABULOUS jeans (thanks mary for shopping with me!), i love these jeans and they've become not only a staple in my wardrobe but almost my work-uniform now that the weather's chillier. i walked into the store and said to the sales girl, i'm looking for brand A jeans, i need them to make my @$$ look like J.Lo please... and voila. it's a pretty penny, but true to its promise, i feel very J.Lo (the good side) when i wear my jeans.

"kijiji!" "bless ya!"

just wondering if anyone has ever visited the Kijiji CA website..
do you like it? what works? how do you find local information/classifies?

i'm not promoting or anything, just curious...

wtf

aight, what's the deal here, i'm 29 and my skin's still breaking out!!! lately with the new job and all the day-long trainings i guess i've been more stressed (and haven't gotten more than 1 workout a week which makes me unhappy). but gosh darn it, i'm not in my teens!!! i shouldn't have to crawl to the pharmacy and read the labels on acne products anymore to see which miraculously work (the 3-day-garantee ones still lie, and only serves to get my hopes up...)
i guess it's no wonder i still get carded buying a drink... ppl say 'one day you'll regret it cuz you won't get carded anymore' i say HA! because i'm still buying acne cream and feeling hideous and that everyone must be staring at the pimples that sprouted up out of nowhere...

misc thoughts... some friends of mine are moving back to Toronto end of this month; at least his company still lets him work from there...

MickeyPlace stocks are > $400 (why oh why won't u let me help dominate the world, oh Mickey?!) my friend who vests mid January will take 1 share, minus her share price, and that will be the budget of the dinner she's treating me. at this point it looks like we're going to French Laundry - yay i've never been

a hockey friend contacted me about a hush-hush project, wants me to participate...
she has the dream job of buying, fixing and completely design & decorat houses for a living - to be able to do that here.. her houses have been featured in magazines... we're meeting to talk about the special project this weekend, i'm looking forward to the details cuz it seems exciting.

Mega Load of CRAP

What a crock of sh..

I guess none of you ever played with Lego? Anyway, I realize its an open market but when you sell a product that looks EXACTLY the same and is completely compatible, in a world where the "Toy" market is shrinking (re: video games) I think its pretty descpicable that a company should make and profit from the exact same product. Its not like its a "better" product...

meeting online

I was surfing around and decided to read some more into Joey's blog today. Low and behold - gossip. I was disappointed she didn't have a PG story for mr.hurc (who I must say is not blogging much these days -come on, tells us how you're feeling) but I was amused with the subject at hand, meeting people online. How many of you have?

If I'm not mistaken, of the most bizzare coincidences, I believe mr.hurc himself was initiated into our group of ex-marianopolites through the computer science servers. We somehow integrated this confused, nerdy, sit at the front of class fracophone into the brazen, studly, man that we know today. This is probably the one case in my life of an online relationship which transitioned succesfully into the real world.

On the other hand, for the sake of completeness, I will admit to my own dabbles at internet love. The first person that comes to mind was some girl I met on a BBS. (yeah, that's right, that's pre-WWW) Blah blah blah I ended up going to a high school dance at... ECS. That's right, the girls' school near Marianopolis, the same school we pass everytime we do a club workout on Summit Circle. To top my feelings of oddness (I was at Marianopolis at the time) I ran into a girl I KNEW at the school. (ie. I was embarassed as her parents sort of know me.) This girl took photos of me with nameless girl. There's evidence out there...

I remember being invited to a party by a fairly cute, older girl - but all I remember from that night was playing "bearball" on the street with a baseball bat and a stuffed teddy. (Maybe that's why I never heard from her/don't remember her.) Oh, oh, and I remember another one. I met this "person" on a BBS and we started chatting and then I realized that this person knew a friend of mine... with a login name "christy" or something I assumed it was a woman... NOOOOo not only was it a MAN, it was my friend's DAD! WTF!@*#&

What did I learn from experience? The world is too small. Men love to fantasize, especially by picking up other personas online (ie. women). If they send you a picture that's too good to be true, it probably is. Lavalife doesn't work. (Or at least not for me.) This isn't Cyrano de Bergerac, a woman isn't going to marry you for your words; its best sticking to meeting people the old fashioned way. First impressions are critical. I'm not Sherlock Holmes but clothes, mannerisms, appearance (clean cut, no gunk under fingernails, clothes etc.) say a lot...

exciting and stressful and tiring times...

well at my new role i joined my new team in rolling out code to the real site... it is both exciting and scary ("With Great Power comes Great Responsibilities") With my 1 click i can really mess things up, which is NOT the kind of limelight i'd want. my team was very supportive so it didn't feel completele idiotic for me to ask questions... i'm pretty thrilled (abeit a bit tired due to the stressful highly reactive time-critical environment)

what gives? the 'soft rock' radio stations here are already playing Christmas music all the time. today the weather was so nice i didn't even need a jacket when i was walking to starbucks in the afternoon; Christmas isn't on my mind. i'm back to my coffee, and i love it. tell me where else can i get happiness for 1.50$/hour - legally (my $3 starbucks soy latte keeps me content and quiet for about 2 hours, and the bang for the buck is pretty decent when you look at it that way. Heck people might even pay much more to keep me QUIET and CONTENT for 2 hours to shut me up)

so i have 3 x 8 hours of training this week... the problem is they try to cram too much in too long stretches. my attention span averages to about 15 minutes before the eyes glazeth over. must remember to get coffee beforehand. with the new and more exciting/stressful duties at work, i'll likely be less able to post to the blog as frequently during 9-5 hours. i'll read your comments though and post when i can, so don't feel completely abandoned. peace.

Aquaman?

So according to Cinescape, WB is picking up Aquaman as a show? Without cable, I haven't been indulging myself with ridiculous teen episodes of Smallville but please, tell me they didn't actually have aquaman on the show? Come on. As soon as I hear "Aquaman" I think of Chris Rock saying "Superman can't walk?!? SUPERman can't walk?! What is the world coming to? Aquaman's gonna drown in his tub?!"

AQUAMAN?... what a joke...


ps. What other good shows have I been missing? I hear "Prison Break" is pretty good...

Good Night and Good Luck

One of my favourite "humanities" course I took at Marianopolis was about the media and the role it plays in our society. It taught me about the subjectivity of what we are spoon-fed and the need to form your own opinion.

"Good Night and Good Luck" is a very beautiful portrayal of tv journalism in its infancy forming the integrity that we now associate with it. As a movie, it is fairly good but I felt some character development weak and others, unnecessary. On the whole, it is Edward R. Murrow's (David Strathairn) thoughtful words that left me hanging for more. In an age when the news could take days, or weeks to be fully investigated, the words have more insight and intelligence. I only wish that newscasters could be like that now.

Now if only I can catch "Touch the Sound" at Parc this week before it disappears...

San Francisco in... Jell-O?

This is so awesome. A scale model of SF made completely in Jell-O. Go through the first 6 pics, then watch the 1-minute video clip of an "earthquake" of the Jell-O city...

happy Rememberance/Veteran's day

funny, here in the US it's Veteran's day... but happy Rememberance day! i miss the poppy pins they'd sell everywhere... and the minute of silence at 11:11am where they fire off 11 canon shots... i think i would be able to better observe these holidays with a day off work, at home, cozy up to a nice sofa, cup of hot cocoa, a book, fireplace...

holy batman!

it was cold this morning. To think I even thought "maybe I can get away without wearing tights". Thank g-d I wore my good tights. -1C. The puddles are frozen. By the time I got in my feet and arms were a bit numb... I'm feeling wussy...

For entertainment, here's something for the guys (well, Gravy in particular) and for the girls.

new adventures...

so i started my first days in the Development group... feels surreal still. they finally came to move junk out of my old cube into my new one so yay, i'll be sitting with my new team

these are people i've enjoyed working with over the past year, but i hope i measure up to the expectations (amy is always fun in small doses - no pun intended, but too much of amy, well people might start to need space away, etc)...
i have 5 boxes of junk accumulated over the last 2 years, that's madness! i moved across the coasts from Canada to US in 5 boxes! and of the 5 only 1 was really important, it's got pictures and memories from home; as in if i lost the other 4 boxes i wouldn't be that sad; nothing in there was irreplaceable.

in any case, things are going ok in the new team. i signed up for training, it just happened that the DAL training (data access layer, remember? for all you cs geeky friends of mine) was this week, and the basic developer training is next - which probably don't make that much sense but it's not like i have other things to do at the moment so i'm gonna attend the training... so many terms and acronyms were thrown around and all training, no matter how interesting, can get tiring after 8 hours. i'm facing the computer, but can't really reply to IM messages, or do much other than read incoming emails. i much prefer to give than receive training at work.

i felt as if i had skipped a grade and now i have no idea what the smart kids are talking about (someone mention i should go hang with the bad kids and smoke behind the school outside... )

we had to remote login to our own machines, and do a bunch of setups to install some plugin in order to set up for the "lab" that is part of the training. well apparently my websphere version was so outdated we don't even support it anymore.

the lady developer next to me was kind enough to let me shadow her and watch and "help" with the lab, as i furiously try to uninstall my outdated WS and reinstall a new one (and i ran out of C drive space so i was furiously trying to delete old views and uninstall "major" applications, etc). She had a real surprised look, and asked in a funny voice "so, hm, what version of WSAD do you USUALLY run?"

all that aside, i pr0bably absorbed 30% of the information covered... however it lends a new insight to why a lot of developers aren't savy with SQL AT ALL (as in they have no idea how to do the basic CRUD create read update delete). there's so many layers abstracted to prevent user stupidity (like forgetting to free connections, or hoarding too many to idle...) that pretty much in the code you copy and paste someone else's DAL code and put your own values in there and voila, magically it works.

still, i think everyone should have the basics down... so they can freaking answer my questions when i have them. it's sad when i look at my IM list of contacts and most of the time i don't see many who can answer my technical questions... but then again some ppl probably think i'm too curious, i'm always trying to figure out why things are that way.

enough rant.

oh yeah i reset to comments by secure-code entry due to popular demand. when we didn't have it we'd have bots spamming ads to comment posts (where i manually used to delete them every time) but when we added them y'all said it was kinda annoying. so now that y'all miss it i've brought it back :)

THAT'S IT!!!!

I come home, and go straight to the back to move the car onto the street so that a friend can come over. I'm not even around my BLOCK, and a MOTHERFCKING TAXI rear ends me. HARD. The car looks ok, but damn! I'm not even using this POS that much and it keeps getting damaged (see-able or not). Do any of you know anything about lease-takeovers/how to get rid of this damn car? I want out NOW!

must... rant

ok, so I got hit by a car Sept. 7, the bike probably arrived at the bike factory ~ 2weeks later, and now I find out it got sent to ... the shop in NY that designed my bike? COME ON! I WANT MY BIKE! I sent them my address, my phone numbers, they've got my bike shop's address and phone numbers here too. I want to rip my hair out! How long do I have to wait? This took longer than when they BUILT my bike! I mean, it was a free repair but still!

Oh and.. the WEATHER! What the HELL is going on? We barely get two days in a row of non-precipitaion! When I see a forecast of 20mm rain, I am *NOT* biking. Being cold AND wet is absolute misery on the bike. I WANT to bike, but I can't! I'm crabby.

ps. I forgot another reason I'm crabby today. I open the metro paper and what do I see? Ugly ass Bourque demanding a recount? Who do you think you are? Dumbass. 35% vote turnout means one thing - nobody gives a rats ass. Monorail? The buses don't even run on time, and you want to build a MONORAIL? Do these people ever watch the Simpsons? Anyway, I'm glad this stupid chapter is over.

Mr. Sparkle

idols

I'm always at a loss when people ask me if I have an idol. I always feel a bit odd/pathetic for not having one. I compare it to ambition/fufillment in life. I really hope I'm not working in a cubicle in front of a computer 10 years from now. But then, what am I doing on this path?

Roberto Heras is a cyclist I revere and respect. When I read today that he had been suspended from his cycling team, I felt let down. Why? It reminded me of the disappointment when I heard Tyler Hamilton had been charged for blood doping, and David Millar stripped of his World Champion TT title (which I watched him win in Hamilton). In a way, do I look up to these guys? Is that why I'm disappointed?

There are plenty of people in my day to day life that I cannot help but admire and respect. From the crazy guy in his 50's in our club who will not only race back to back weekends, but even mutiple races in one weekend! He helps and encourages all of us with his experience, and used to train with his daughter (our age) for a year before she left town for school. Then there's the club prez who loves his job, loves tri but more importantly loves & spoils his family in a way that I can only hope to acheive in my future. I hope I can have that balance in family life.

Then of course, I have to mention 'becca. She has something in her I (and many other amateur triathletes) don't have and that's the ability to push hard for soooo stinking long during a race. ... are these people my idols?

Boo

little Boo from Monsters Inc (my fave Pixar movie) is so cute. i always believed and still do that she is mixed, there's half asian blood in her - JUST LOOK AT HER!!!

so somehow that came up in the conversation, Garv AIMs me: "Boo's gonna be hot." - dude that's just wrong! she's a kid! (then again, mixed kids are always so beautiful!)

---------------------

is anyone going to see Chicken Little? i like Zach Braff (Scrubs), and some of the characters in the movie SEEMS promising, but i get the feeling Disney is Trying Too Hard, ya know?! if you do go watch it, let me know if it measures up to any pixar movies at all, and if it's worth $10 to go see it. (we don't have Cheapie Tuesday here, where it's like 6$ for any movie the entire day/night on Tuesdays).

my rating for movies:

• see it in theatres (worth 10$/person)
• see it for matinee price (first showing on the weekends, so get the heck up early and go see the 11am movie dammit)
• worth a Blockbuster rental (5$ shared between your hood)
• worth putting on Netflix (watch it if it comes in the mail)
• worth watching for free on TV (hey it's free, only cost you time, and choosing to watch it)
• worth watching on the plane (worth watching if you are stuck for 5 hours with nowhere to go)
• not even worth watching on the plane (you would have to pay me real money to watch it

The Big Adventure, circa 1997

Reading comments for blog entries...

Isn't there an easier way to check for new comments in blog entries without having to click on every stupid link?

oh no! I didn't do my homework!

The other night, I had a nightmare that I had beeen skipping class, and did't hand in an assignment that was worth 35% or something. Its kind of sad when I wake up having to think twice whether I actually have "homework" or whether or not I'm still attending school. Do any of you re-live those school nights? I feel so unsettled when I try to go back to sleep too.

What a small MP3 player you have...

Well, the marketing machine got to me, and I finally bought myself an iPod Nano. I've been showing it off to pretty much anyone who seems remotely interested. It's not too hard when you work in the IT field, and most of your friends are geeks, nerds and technophiles. (you know you are.)

So it's a great little gadget. The menus are so intuitive, playlists easy to create, even on the fly. The LCD screen is amazing for its size, very clear and bright, photos come up pretty well. It also supports vCards for Windows Address Book support, which is kinda limiting, but I'm sure if I had an Apple computer, I would have loads of better software to use. Haven't played with the calendar much, since I need to use MS Outlook, which I hate. Again, an Apple machine would offer much better apps it seems.

So anyway, I love my iPod. Even though I drive to work every day, I can almost bear public transportation now with that little device. Maybe I should to save on gas, parking and, very soon, shoveling.

bowling is so not my game

so there was a team outing yesterday, mandatory to build team morale (in my opinion if you have to make a team morale boosting outing mandatory you're already in trouble for morale) and it was bowling, which doesn't require people to have special skills to do.
i suck at bowling, it's one of the sports i don';t think i'll be good at, ever. the best score i had was under 70. and trust me i wasn't TRYING for the worst score prize (not that i won that either, i am just slightly better than the worst - story of my life!)

speaking of sports, there's so many "DIFFERENT" sports i see on ESPN now, i think if i had to do it all over, i would be quite an athelete. Spelling Championships, National Scrabble Championship, World Eating Contest, Holdem Poker Tournaments... now i see that i could've had much potential to be the sporty jock type.

it's my official last day in qa, starting monday i'll be in development. it's kinda surreal, the changing of a career path. i was talking to a friend who thought i should be proud i've achieve the change (it's really hard to go from qa to dev) - but it's like i can see the mountain top, but give me 3 months, until i've conquered the top, stake my flag up there and look down to admire the view, i just dont want to take any chances.

unrelated topic, most of you reading this blog has known me FOREVER. so i'm wondering, if someone tells you that every time i see them i give them a stare-down in a malicious way, would you believe them? (to put in context, someone that has only TALKED to me once, and seen me in passing from time to time since) i know everyone's capable of BEING mean, but seriously, do you guys think i'm mean in general, mean spirited by nature, or would be mean to someone i don't really know?? and in general, how do you deal with other people who misinterprets your intentions either on purpose for their own means, or by accident because they've got issues?

if we were in court, would you be my character witness?? (totally hypothetical question, pls don't be alarmed and start raising money to get me bail money out of jail or anything!!!)

Bonjour La Police!

So, murder capital of Canada, suicide capital of Canada, and now... protest arresting capital of Canada! Alright Montreal! I'll have to confess I've never had the displeasure of dealing with Montreal police in crowd situations. And I'll give that Montrealers in crowds can be pretty rowdy... I hate authority figures...

who here bought star wars III: revenge of the moron?

I have to admit, I only saw it on opening day (WHY?) and haven't seen it since. I've erased all memories of the movie, only remembering that it SUCKED. My dvd collecting has also been dwindling but really, I don't want to buy this movie. I'm even thinking of selling off eps.1&2. I probably should see it at least one more time but I don't even want to rent it. (some movies are ok on tv, in the home, not at 2am in the morning when I want to go home and sleep)

a few things that still bug me: WHY oh WHY was the acting SO terrible? (Well, ok, Lucas was directing - and we know he CAN'T - the best film was Empire and that was directed by Irvin Kershner) How is it that these genius mind reading, emotional feeling from galaxies away cannot sense the "eeeevil" emperor next door? How do the BEST JedI get killed in split seconds? Why is Anakin so stupid? Why doesn't he "sense" TWO children born? The Organas were interesting but there was practically no character development there! (Is this because of the stupid tv shows planned for 2007?) How can they NOT give C3PO a new body? Why is YODA the only one able to "escape"? Honestly I can't remember much. But man, that movie SUCKED.

Gravy: Howard's getting me a 9$seatpost. We'll see how far that goes. You still coming up this weekend?

what? no google?

got online last night to do the usual gmail check and google was DOWN. yes, ladies and gentlemen, DOWN, as in Page Not Found, server error, no access, good luck buddy, DOWN.

not only was gmail down, google seach, google maps, froogle, down down down. I was so confused, because google was NEVER down!!! i actually went to Yahoo, CNN and Slashdot to see if there were news (and still nothing i've found today) - what the?!?!
they were down for at least an hour, during which time other websites "powered by" them were acting funny, won't finish loading either.
that's my rant; it didn't seem like a maintenance window, since ALL their services/sites were down without even a redirect "we're down temporarily" notice. but where is the news coverage? did they get a virus? what's going on?
why is their stock price so freaking high and how do i get a cut?

disturbing dream

I was fishing. There was some kind of problem with us fishing, but some guy and myself ended up going against whatever sanction there was. I remember being on a long, very narrow boat with an engine, but we were in a current/draft that was pulling us along at a good speed. We passed all sorts of other fishermen putting down their nets.

* * * the next thing I remember * * *

was being on land. The guy I was with started bludgeoning a turtle. (A cute one at that.) I was horrified. After he thought he was done, it started moving again and he kept at it, hitting the poor turtle on the head.

* * * don't remember * * *

next thing I know, I'm running away, I'm running through corridors and stairs, and people were running faster than me. I stopped because I had no idea where to go. I was lost.

Then, I woke up.

uh... ok... so?

"The world has changed from when I was a young teen feeling ashamed for being gay. The issue of gay marriage is now a political issue. That would have been unthinkable when I was young."

Dang, Sulu.. you slow.

shameless plug for my whipped shea...

it's my blog and i can shamelessly plug my product if i want to :)

******************************************************************

I'm happy to announce that I'll be making
a batch of LIMITED EDITION Whipped Shea Body Butter in time for the
holidays! 75%+ shea butter that's been whipped with care (with grapeseed and sweet almond
oils), fluffy to the touch and melts on your skin. It's perfect for
the frosty winter winds and is moisturizing enough to protect the
dryest of skin. It's made of the purest and best ingredients that I
only use for myself - no preservatives. Friends and family have told
me they swear by it for winter dry skin, good on burns, stretch
marks... They keep for a year or more if stored in a cool location

The product will come in 2 sizes:
4 oz (clear or blue jar, depending which ones I have left) 8$
or new bigger 8oz matte-silver-finish tins (limited qualities) 15$

The butter will come in the follow 3 scents:
Unscented: natural scent, nothing added to the butters and oils; the
purest for the purists.
Coconut Lime: a sweet cocktail of coconut with a twist of lime to make
this a citrusy-tropical delight; kind of like Bath & Body Work's
"Coconut Lime Verbana" except mine is more citrusy. Trust me you won't
be disappointed.
Baby Gracious: gently feminine, a hint of light baby powder, soft with
notes of Poppy, Green Accord, Pink Mimosa, Pepper, Creamy White Woods,
and Musk. A lovely and unique soft scent.

I am taking pre-orders right now; for those living in Montreal, I can either send the
products to 1 central Montreal location (mom's store, on the Plateau,
where you can pick up there) for 1$ shipping charge/order; or send it
to your individual address (we can discuss shipping costs based on
your order).

They are perfect for gifts or for hoarding to treat yourself and
pamper your skin to brace for the coming winter. With skin so soft and
perfect, you'll not only feel 21 again, you'll look 21 too. :)

Please order by Thursday November 10 via email - you all know my gmail address so please send it there. Your order will arrive byDecember 15 or earlier (if you need it a lot earlier, please specify). Payment (i take Paypal) is only due when product is ready to ship.