Punch Drunk Love. Everyone who has seen it that I have spoken to says it is incredible. But, come on, Adam Sandler in a serious role? No poo-poo humour? Whatever. And yet, I was intrigued. I am, afterall, a fan of Adam Sandler and his poo-poo humour. I have enjoyed him for years. And I wanted to see Punch Drunk Love. Last night, Rick and I saw it. And it was... incredible. Sandler was marvelous as Barry Egan and yes, though it was a role written especially for him, he really does act. It's funny. It's very funny, but it's surprisingly warm and heartfelt, and from the very opening scene, the movie holds it's viewers enraptured.

It is a movie about what can happen when a man brings an harmonium into his life.

Continuing the filmic theme of this entry, this morning was the ROM staff preview of the new Lord of the Rings exhibit at the planetarium. Though it was being held at an ungodly time, 8:30am to 9:30am, huge numbers of staffers came in, like me, early, just to see this exhibit. I saw the one at Casa Loma last year and this one is better. It's not as long, mostly because at Casa Loma, the exhibit stretched from one part of the castle to the other, in the attic, through the underground tunnel... I liked the atmosphere at Casa Loma better, but frankly, this exhibit was amazing. It's designed by the actual set designers from the films. It's pretty good. And the Deadmarsh is... spooky. I'm definitely going to go back. There was a lot I didn't get to see.

Oh, and I went dressed up. Yep. Was there any question? It's Hallowe'en, after all, and I'm not one to miss an opportunity like that. I'm wearing my black puffy-sleeved shirt, one of my black vests (the one with the coin trimming), my bondage pants, and the 'Sith' robe that Nicole gave me for my birthday. I got a great reaction from some corporate types waiting for the elevator when I stepped out. And inside the exhibit, someone said, "Oh, I think she's from the wrong side of the Shire." Hee hee !

Have a safe and happy Samhain and Hallowe'en.

Some days, coffee just isn't enough. Even highly sweetened coffee. I'm just feeling so burnt out today.

Anyway, let me recap some points from my weekend back in the Petes. The Pink Ribbon Ball, held at the Trentwinds, was quite nice, until the band started. Man. Kountry Klassics. The name says it all, unfortunately. I did enjoy a nice two-step with Mom's friend, Wayne, however. The food was good and the auction was fun. After a while, though, Mom and I began to really feel uncomfortable with the ultra-couply atmosphere.

I helped Mom bring in her fish on Sunday. It was a bit chilly, especially when our hands were submerged in the water, but ultimately, it was an adventure and it all ended up quite successful. As an update to this story, sadly, yesterday, Mom discovered a bit too late that there was a hairline crack in the coy basin in the basement. While she was able to save Papa Coy, Mama Coy ended up asphixiating in the shallow water where the circulation pump could not reach. Sad news, but for four years, Mama Coy lived a very happy, fishy life and grew to be an enormous 16" long.

My hard drive is indeed toasted. I did consider data recovery as I really am loathe to lose my stories and old university essays, not to mention the art and music, too. Data recovery would just be too expensive so I'm just going to let this slip away and consider it a fresh start. The hard drive is, thankfully, still under warranty, so I'll be able to get a replacement from the company.

Yesterday, Scarlette's alternator blew in the parking lot right by the ROM. I spent the greater portion of my morning with a very pleasant tow-truck driver named Eric, and the first half of the afternoon at a friendly CAA garage near my house called Bento's Auto Repair, or some such. So, close to 300 dollars later, Scarlette was running quite smoothly. Couple this with the exhaust leak I had just had fixed and I have one nicely running car. Anyway, so much for being ahead of the Eight Ball this month. I'll be living on credit until next week's paycheque.

Tonight, Rick's taking me to see Punch Drunk Love and we're going to eat some sushi. Whee ! A date. Tomorrow, we're going to Al and Carrie's to help them hand out candy to children. I think I'll have to bring some art stuff over to their house, too, though, because I need to finish matting my artwork for the convention in Rochester. Megan and I are driving there and back on Friday. Exciting !

Today's name of the day at the ROM is Michael. Actually, it's been more like the name of the week. I've entered so many Michael's into the membership database that you would think it would go out of style. The web address of the day is definitely thejaggededgegroup.com, just for the name alone. It would have to be for the name, since there's nothing on the page yet.

I had my first Krispy Kreme doughnut today. It was... kind of tasty, but really sweet, and it had this weird texture and I didn't need to chew. I'm sorry, but... shouldn't you have to chew a doughnut? You'd think. Calvin, at work, says you should have them nuked, because 'they're just like angel wings'. I'll take his word for it. Anyway, I had said doughnut at a membership/foundation coffee mixer, or something, this morning. Of course, the point was to mingle together, but membership talked to membership and foundation talked to foundation. It's like foundation views membership as it's poor relation, or something. That said, I think it fair to point out that the coffee was quite delicious.

My commute in to the city from the Petes this morning was quite extraordinary. The sun was coming up and had cast a rosey glow over all of the clouds in the very blue sky. The light itself had that special fragility of autumn sunlight, that clear brightness that can only barely chase away the frost. And there was frost. There was a delicate silver coating over all the umber and chocolate shades of grass along the highway; with the coloured leaves above it was even more beautiful. Add to that how quickly the drive passed and how smoothly the traffic moved and I could almost persuade myself that I should move back to Peterborough and commute in to work.

Almost.

...

And, this just in: Bad news.

Your computer and Maxtor's own diagnostic tools are unable to detect
your hard drive. The clunking noise means the power is working, computer
knows that something is attached, but is unable to follow-through with
the detection process.

I tried switching ide cables, power cables, and primary/secondary
positions on the motherboard. (As well as using another computer.) The
problem is definitely the hard drive itself, which will need to be sent
to a professional recovery center if you are to recover any data.

There's http://www.cdrdatarecovery.com/ in toronto that advertises an
"under $500" special.. They might not be a bad option, since they don't
charge you if they can't get any data. Or try a big US company like
http://www.drivesavers.com/.

What a recovery center can do is replace the drive components in a
cleanroom or move the disk platters to a new drive altogether, that sort
of thing. It isn't cheap, but you have to decide how much of your
time/money your data is worth to you.

This terrible, terrible news comes straight from Derek who was doing an autopsy on Natasha. And just this time last week I was trilling joyfully about her. I should have backed up her files... I kept meaning to, but just never got around to it. I've been so busy. And now I want to cry. I guess Mom and I will discuss the options tonight.

In a pleasant moment of complete distraction, I decided to look up spider pictures on the 'net. Yep, it was definitely distracting, speaking as an arachnaphobe. I found this very nifty site that has some great information on it and especially enjoyed its unidentified spiders page. Then there was this other page about the spiders of the Dolomites, which wasn't terribly interesting, but it does sport some nice photos. My favourite is the top photograph of this page because it makes me smile. I mean, look at it's adorable face ! It's got its happy mask on. The whole reason I decided to waste time like this was because of the spider that was in my dream last night. I wanted to see if it was a real species. I'm still not sure, but I did see one spider that looked similar, at least in shape.

I had a wonderful car moment last night when I was driving home from work. I was sitting in traffic on Davenport listening to Disc Drive on CBC2, when I glance out my window at the car exactly beside me. There, stopped in traffic heading the other way, was an almost identical Subaru - a slightly later model Loyale, I think. Even the colour was almost the same. The woman behind the wheel, in her later middle age with a similar style as my mother, was looking at Scarlette with a big smile on her face. I grinned and gave her the thumbs-up, which she answered with her own. Hurray for old-school Subaru owners !

So, it turns out that the only person to remark on my entry about apostrophes and Old English was Tanya, who got quite professorish at me as she gave me a lecture about Old English vs. Middle English. Usually, such emails come from Nick, so this was a bit of a surprise. Of course, I'm opting to completely disregard her opinion, because... well, because I can. Hah ! Anyway, at least the entry sparked some controversy, though not at all about apostrophes or semi-colons. Actually, Tanya's email was quite interesting and did spark some return discussion from me. She's right, but I think I'm also right, at least to a degree, and maybe we'll have to leave it at that. The thing with history, especially the history of language, is that since no one was THERE to record it, we cannot ever know for sure. Maybe, to better qualify terms like Old English, we should make a broader scale that reflects demographic changes and whatnot.

Proto English - pre 300CE
Early English - 300-1066CE
Old English - 1066-1350CE
Middle English - 1350-1700CE
Modern English - 1700 onward
American Spelling - ongoing problem

And then anyone who deviates from said scale, can be drawn and quartered, or beheaded, or flayed, or hanged, or shot, depending on the time period they're referring to. Is that a bit over the top? Perhaps. Okay, well, I still think my list should stand. Tanya, your thoughts? ;)

Natasha's hard drive has blown. This is very bad. Very, very bad; no idea if it's recoverable. I almost went into appoplectic shock today when discussing what this could mean with my computer savvy boss. Strangely, when it happened, I was completely calm. I just shut it down and it restarted with this weird message: Boot Failure Insert Boot Disk and Press Enter. Or something to that effect. I just turned her off and then expected all to be well the following day. Sadly, this was not to be. I've now called Techknight and hopefully he'll be able to work a miracle. There are at least seven years worth of documents saved in her brain and several of them I desperately do not wish to lose. :(

Today, at work, I'm running a list. I'm checking it twice. I'm finding out who's been naughty or nice. And I can assure you that I'm ready for a stiff drink. This is hell. Calvin and I have both been working on this list of ROM volunteers trying to match them to memberships (a prerequisite to volunteering), only we seem not to be able to standardise our search techniques. I've been through this list of hundreds twice already, Calvin at least that many times, maybe more, and guess what we'll be doing together this afternoon? Yep. All over again. Feel my joy.

I'm off to Peterborough tonight, with Willi, in order to have my car worked on tomorrow. I'll take the Greyhound back to Toronto (leaving Willi with Mom) tomorrow morning in order to get to work on time. Yay? No. Anyway, on Friday night, I'll head back out to the Petes for the weekend. I will be attending the Pink Ribbon Ball in support of breast cancer research. So, I guess I will have to haunt the corn maze next year. Anyway, this will be more back and forth to Peterborough in a week than I've done since I moved out of residence at the end of my second year.

I was rear-ended again today. Yes, again. It's becoming something of a running joke only I do not find it terribly humourous, especially when the driver at fault tries to bully me. Anyway, 20 minutes late for work, but otherwise completely fine and Scarlette unscathed; it's all good.

I watched a lot of TV last night, which is quite bizarre for me, but I got a costume design done for the fan film and spent time bonding with Willi (who has finally forgiven me for 'abandoning' her when I went to the cottage) and also Nick. One shouldn't bond too closely with Nick, though, because he's liable to do something that he won't regret... but you might. He found a link to a woman reading The Canterbury Tales in the Old English. Gosh, it sounded beautiful and the language sort of permiated my skull and became perfectly understandable. I've remarked on it before, but Old English sounds a lot like Dutch.

Well, Wilson is no longer with the ROM, choosing instead, the tricky road to employment in Hong Kong. Tony Tran is up here now, and while he's a nice and funny guy, things just won't be the same without Wilson leaning around the divider saying, "Maya you so mean ! You so mean, Maya. I call you DJ Meanie because you so mean. Why you so mean to me?" What a nut. I wish him well. Apparently the job market in Hong Kong is very difficult, so he'll need all the good wishes he can get. Anyway, having Tony coming upstairs (he, like me, began with site-sales) will likely mean I'll lose some of my hours since the whole reason I've been working full-time has been because we've been short-staffed. Maybe I'll get some extra work from New Media. I hope.

To change the topic completely, a few weeks back, Rick sent me a link to the Apostrophe Protecion Society. I think he did it as something of a joke, knowing that I have a real beef with how badly abused language has become. Apostrophes, semi-colons, colons, when used incorrectly, as well as double negatives, make me crazy. Anyway, I emailed the chairman of the Society and he emailed me in response. Here is my letter to him:

...I am driven to distraction by improper apostrophe placement as well as other
common grammatical horrors. I can't help it, I was raised by well degreed
mother who also happened to teach English to functionally illiterate college
students.

Have you considered creating a sibling society about the proper use of
semi-colons? I believe that is another horribly abused punctuation mark...

His response:

...What a very encouraging email to receive. Thanks. As you say, it will be
a fight, but there seem to be plenty of people who still have respect for
grammar. I don't think I can start protecting the semi-colon, but if you
like to start an appropriate society, let me know. I will certainly join.
Best wishes - John

Isn't that neat? Now watch, everyone will start emailing me when I make grammatical errors in my weblog. I guess that's the price I have to pay. Anyway, I'd love to start a Semi-colon Protection Society. Anyone know how one does such a thing?

Apparently, Elfwood does not believe that what I do with lead miniatures is original art. Okaaaay. I'm not sure what makes them different than people having inked a work but having had someone else paint it, or vise versa. Sometimes, Elfwood's rules piss me right off. I guess my portfolio page is going to have to get a serious face-lift soon, then.

Anyway, congratulations, Rick, on your buck-and-a-half raise ! *smooches*

If Elvis is flipping burgers in the south, Ernie Coombs is alive and playing pool in Peterborough.

Another long hiatus, but another valid reason. I was in the Petes with Rick, and frankly, I was too busy to even manage to check my email, let alone write in my weblog.

We had a nice time in the Petes, despite some setbacks. I had a tetnus shot that made me feel kind of less than stellar, and all our corn maze haunting intentions were foiled when Henry (since childhood, I've given this name to my vision of the weather god) decided that the skies should open and spill forth their liquid contents. Oh well. I might manage some haunting next weekend, but we'll have to see.

There was much enjoyable socialising. On Saturday, Rick and I met up with the gang (Al, Carrie, Richie, and Bill, and many others, who do not picture in the later part of this account) at a Warhammer tourney and following that, upon discovering that nothing worth mentioning was playing at the cinema, there were drinks and food at Riley's. Rick and I played some highly humourous games of pool with Richie and Bill. Richie narrowly missed Rick's boy-bits with the cue ball, and nailed me with the chalk. I swear, it was like a war zone with balls flying everywhere except where we wanted them to go. And yes, Ernie Coombs is alive and playing pool in Peterborough. The resemblance was uncanny.

Mom had Ray over for dinner on Friday night, and though the vaccination had me feeling low, it was a good time. We ate some of the game meat that we came back with from the cottage, the venison sausages. Following that, we watched Deliverance, which oddly enough, I'd never seen. Wow. They just don't make films like that anymore. Mostly, I forgot that I was watching a movie at all, the whole thing moved so naturally. Interestingly enough, they showed it on television the following night, and we managed to tune in to the interviews following it. Ronnie Cox, the actor that played Drew, said that in the year following the film's release, 31 men died on the Chattooga river (where the film was shot) trying to re-enact the story.

Sunday was the fundraising champaigne brunch in support of the Peterborough Symphony Orchestra hosted at th'Electric City Gardens. It was amazing. The champaigne, provided by the incredibly cheap Collio Estates (they donated four bottles of not very good, ultra-affordable 'champagne'), was the only thing that was not. It was fizzy white wine that was a long way from being delicious or classy. Anyway, the food was marvelous, naturally, and there was a flutist and keyboard accompaniment who played quite pleasantly. All in all, it was a success, I think, and everyone was impressed. Good job to my mom for organising the whole thing, and to Rick (he cut off the holly from the ornaments - they were Christmas tree decorations, originally), and also to me, for sitting at the computer for a couple of hours putting together the menu cards. Yay !

Okay, I'm back ! I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving, or, for those of you who aren't Canadian, but think we're just another state, a happy Columbus Day.

My cottage was spectacular. Yes, it's always wonderful there, but it was extra spiffy this time, because it was so perfect. I had no pressures attached to the making of art for the expo, just time with myself, Mom, Melody (the cat we brought because she needs daily medication) and all the things I chose to spend time doing. I think it wouldn't be fair to chronicle the events as I so often do, rather I think this time I'll just high light some stand-out moments (hours). There was at least one such event each day - it was that kind of a holiday.

We arrived on Thursday, after dark, to find the house exactly as it was left. This was a wonderful thing. For the last four summers, excluding this past summer, we've rented our cottage to friends of the family. In years prior to that, often the camp was used by friends in the Montreal area on the weekends. This time, no one had been using the camp since Mom closed it up at the end of August. All the pots and pans, glasses and forks were exactly as they had been left. The bedrooms were as they had been, things stored where they were supposed to be; a rare and exquisite pleasure, simple as it is.

The first fire that we lit was a wonderful thing, too. Oh, the smell of wood smoke filling the woods and tinging the air in the cabin is one of my favourite things. I love the sound of birch when it pops and the flare of heat when I open the stove doors. It's an airtight stove, so it heats well and effeciently. The piece itself probably ways six hundred pounds and is cast iron. The house may rot back to the earth and that stove will remain. There's a lovely familiar squeak as you turn the handles to open the doors, too, sort of a chirp that signifies warmth, love, and probably my mother cursing as a log rolls off of where it should be pinning her poker beneath it. Unfortunately, Melody became the second cat we've owned to jump on it. It is a good thing her feet are tufty with fur, because she didn't burn them badly. The second cat and in both instances, neither cat could boast a remarkable mind.

I took a walk every day that we were up there. On the Saturday, I went and picked apples from the trees that stand in what were once the fields of the McEvoy farm. Monge owns it now, and has for years, but I remember when the fields were still fields, albeit overgrown. Once, crossing the stream that runs through them, my father and I fell in. Apparently my fears of crossing over a fallen tree were completely well-founded, and we both sogged our way home. I still remember how my sneakers squelched. Anyway, now the fields are choked with evergreens planted when Monge took the fields, their purpose, I suppose, eventually to be harvested for timber. Thick though they grow, they have not crushed the indomitable spirit of the old apple trees, nor, it seems, have they infiltrated the deeper areas of field. I picked a basket's worth of apples for Thanksgiving dinner. Mom makes the BEST spiced crabapples. Ever. This time, I was smart enough to greet the trees warmly and not climb about in them, as apple trees, at least in the mythology, are very... difficult. Last summer, I learned the hard way when my pants were torn quite vulgarly through the inner thighs and my knee was twisted painfully as I fell out of one tree. The trees, this time, seemed quite happy to share their burden with me, and they ended up quite delicious.

Thanksgiving dinner was great ! Mom bought a roaster, rather than toiling all day over the wood-burner in the kitchen. It was a marvelous adventure and a complete success ! Elizabeth came in from Montreal (never play cards with her, she's a shark, something we forget everytime) and Jean and Michael came up the hill to join us in our feast. We moved the dinning room table out of the 'dining room' and into the living room, near the big stove, in order to accomodate the larger number of people. The turkey was perfect, the apples were perfect, the stuffing and potatoes were perfect, the pie was perfect, and the company was better than that ! It was a memorable Thanksgiving, to be sure.

We took a drive up the Rouge River (Riviere Rouge, as the signage says) in order to see the fall colours and, as they were coming into their peak, we were not disappointed. I climbed about on the massive rocks of the river, as I often do, only this time I was bundled in a long sleeved shirt, a flannel lumber shirt, and my leather jacket. It was cold ! It had actually bottomed out at zero degrees the previous night. Anyway, Mom and I collected a pair of pebbles to take to Leo's grave and then we took the very scenic route to the cemetary. We laid the pebbles on the gravestone and then wandered in the rest of the cemetary reading some of the other names. McEvoy, McArthur, Lalonde, Poirier, MacAndrews... if anyone thinks Quebec was founded soley by French people, they just need to visit the rural cemetaries of western Quebec and the Eastern Townships; laine pur, my arse. Following our visit to Leo, we went home to enjoy leftovers. Yum !

Anyway, so now I'm back in Toronto, for the night, before gathering up my cat and boyfriend to head back to the Petes for fun over the weekend. Rick hasn't been out to the Petes in a long time, so it should be nice. We'll be haunting a corn maze the Saturday night, and enjoying a champagne brunch in support of the Peterborough Symphony Orchestra. Keen !

And finally, in other news, I finished my work on the ROM site and why am I not surprised to see that it hasn't been added to their webpage, yet? Maybe I'll drop into the IT department tomorrow when I'm in to pick up my paycheque and see Brett about it. Oh well, the work was done and now it's out of my hands.

This is going to be my last post for a little while as I'm heading to the Petes tonight and tomorrow, Mom and I will be heading to the cottage. I'm pretty excited about going; autumn is a good time up there. I can already smell the wood smoke and hear the rustle of drying leaves. The colours probably won't be terribly vibrant as they are practically nonexistant here in the city. It's just been such a lousy fall for colour. At least it's gotten cooler, though they're calling for temperatures in the low 20s later this week. Yeesh.

There's a union party at the Bedford Academy this evening, so I'm going for a bit. We'll be celebrating our new union executives and the achievement of two decent contracts. Rick will meet me here at the museum and we'll walk over. There will be finger foods and one free drink, which I'll let Rick have, and then, after I congratulate Ceceil on being re-elected as the president, I'm going to head home to pack. Derek is coming over, too, in order to pick up keys and to see how to feed Willi while Nick and I are absent. I think Willi'll be in good hands with him. He's a good egg.

I've handed over my work on the ICC page to Brett, the ROM's amazingly patient and pleasant webmaster. We made a couple more changes to it today, sitting in his office. All in all, it's not been a terribly arduous project, and I've enjoyed it quite a bit. I learned new things, and offered good suggestions, some of which were implemented, and I think it's ben a really good experience. I hope to be doing more of such work for the ROM in the future. Go me !

Anyway, back to work I go. I have plenty of stuff here that needs doing before I take off. I hope everyone has a happy Thanksgiving long-weekend. See you when I get back !

After a discussion with my mother about names I do and do not like, I have to add a few to my list of liked names: Maya (Mom got offended that I hadn't put it on, and yes, I LOVE my name), Ira, Ruth, Judas, Rachel, Matthew, James (not Jim), Solomon, and Avrum. Heavy on the Judeo-Christian names, eh? I'll also add Sebastian (and its variants), Una, Wim, and Joan. Now, as a disclaimer: If you don't see your name, I might not have thought of it, or while I might like it, it might not have quite made the list. The list is by no means complete, nor is it meant to offend. At the very least, these lists have stimulated a good amount of conversation.

I did not find Velkyn's character sheet. I suspect it is truly lost. Despite my promise not to play if I could not find it, I did end up going to Al and Carrie's afterall. I brought my wax beans and added them to the D&D dinner, and then was informed that I was to be playing afterall, because they weren't done. Okay then. I hadn't brought even my temporary sheet. Nuts. Good thing I carry dice in my purse. Shut up, you knew I was a geek.

Unfortunately, I felt the beginnings of a headache on my way over, and by the time I was eating, I knew it was a migraine. Not wanting to poop out, I took some tylenol, bringing the pain to a more tolerable, though still clinging, level, and went on with the game. My fun level was a lot lower than usual because of the pain, and when I returned to my home I washed my face and went to bed.

This morning, I felt much better; sensitive in the eyes, but altogether functional. It's a wonderful autumn day, cool, crisp, windy, with bright sunshine and a real smell of October in the air. I am wearing my velvet blazer for the first time since last winter and though smelling a bit musty, it's nice to be clothed in the old favourites again. Tonight, I'll get my work done with the ICC thing and tomorrow I'll be able to take it to the ROM's webmaster for preliminary hosting. I can't get it to look good in netscape, despite using the existing template, but IT can do something about that.

Now I'm pretty much counting down the days until I'll be at my cottage. Mom and I will be there for Thanksgiving. We haven't done that in a long time. We're going up on Thursday and we're coming back on the Tuesday, so it will be a nice long weekend. I love the cottage in the fall. I love the cottage all the time, really, but in the fall it's just so autumnally wonderful. Except for the extremely cold seat in the outhouse, anyway. :O

Willi will stay in Toronto. This will be a bit stressful for her, I know, because she's so attached to me, and with Nick doing family things for part of it, it will be even worse. Derek will be looking after things while I'm gone, so I know she'll be okay. Mom will be bringing Melody, though, leaving Chester at her house, because Melody is old and gets daily medication that we don't trust others to give. We'd just bring them all if we could, but it's hunting season and we don't really want them to be shot. It will be pretty difficult to keep them in, so it's best if we do not bring them at all. I suggested we could get them little jackets in hunter orange, but Mom did not share my enthusiasm. *laugh* Oh well.

See which Greek Goddess you are.

That was NOT the same picture that was on the website. I dunno what goddess that is, but that is not Athena. Athena had a helmet and, you know, looks kind of war-like. Anyway, on with the log.

I had a wonderful time in Guelph visiting with Tracy. The drive out was horrible what with rush hour traffic and an accident, too. It turned a drive that I can easily do in under an hour and fifteen minutes into closer to two hours. Crappy. On a positive note, the weather held off until I arrived at her place. A wicked storm blew up, soaking her bed (before it occured to us to close her bedroom window), but we were safe and sound enjoying Trey Parker's movie, Orgazmo, which I'd never seen. Man, was it crazy ! Think of it: good Mormon boy of the latter-day saints doing his mission work in LA and getting drafted into a porn flick. Don't worry, he has a stunt cock stand in for the penetration scenes. It was crude, but also very clever and totally satisfying, which has nothing to do with the porn. Really. ;)

I played with Tracy's parrot, Coral (who bit me today and drew blood, the nasty fellow), quite a bit, as well as her cat, Deedlit (spelling, anyone?). Deedlit's a bit silly, but quite forgiving because she's so darn cute, sort of like Willi. I was less impressed with her when she stepped on my face at seven in the morning, and when she and the other cat, Jasper, were wrestling in the room at various times of the night. Good wrestling, not fighting. One thing that was super neat and not something you see every day, was Tracy and Mel (her housemate) vaccinating Jasper. The cat refuses to let a vet touch him, even on a house call, so Mel was given the syringes already filled with the vaccines and was left to do it herself. She's only a second year student, though, and less comfortable with needles than Tracy, so after three missed attempts, they wrapped Jasper in a towel, Mel held him down, and Tracy gave the injection. A day in the life of a vet student? Today we also took Deedlit outside on her leash and harness. Nifty.

We went to a farmers' market this morning and bought good food, some of which I brought back for my dinner. To digress somewhat, I enjoyed two small emu-meat pies and some late corn on the cob for dinner tonight. I have wax beans for tomorrow. Hurray ! The apple seller was out of spartans, but I picked up some lovely empires for a nice low price and they are delicious. Tracy also brought me along for a tour of the vet college. She is a tour guide and I was more than happy to accompany as it allows me to live somewhat viccariously through her own experiences at the school. I enjoyed the tour very much. I got to see specimens in jars of icky siamese twin pigs and such. Pretty gross stuff. The tour was fun and the college has such a lovely atmosphere, even if parts of it smell rather a bit like preserved cadavers. When the tour was over, Tracy took me into the restricted areas to meet her sheep. She works with a lab sheep. We also walked past the equine isolation stalls and there was one horse passed out in the stall on an IV, which was pretty interesting to see. There was a gorgeous show horse in one stall and he was all excited to see people looking in the observation window and he looked very good. We couldn't figure out why he was in isolation. Then we saw the bloody mucus he left on the plexiglass. Ew. Not a good sign.

Anyway, now I'm back at home, procrastinating before A) putting the edited text into the web page and, B) looking for my long lost character sheet. If I can't find it, I doubt I'll go to D&D tomorrow. I have a lot of stuff I need to be doing, anyway. We'll see.

In case you've sent me email in the last five days and I haven't answered, this would be because Hotmail is meddling with its servers again, or something. Anyway, I know for a fact that at least two messages never came and one was delayed by three days. I also have no idea if the emails I'm sending are going out, though it does appear that for the most part they are. Back to work I go.

Heading to Guelph tonight ! Hurray ! I'm going to visit with Tracy. Initially it was to be for the whole weekend, but her father's birthday is tomorrow night and I have more work to be doing so we're driving back together in the afternoon on Saturday. Willi should be suitably upset by my absense. Little does she know that I'll be gone for most of a week over Thanksgiving. Poor girl. I'll miss her, but on the other hand, I'll enjoy getting a full night's sleep several nights in a row.

Speaking of work, which I really wasn't speaking of, I'm quite pleased. I've been working on the ICC site and had to play within the bounds of the current website template. It's a very boring template, but it's teaching me many things. I used CSS for the first time (cascading style sheets) ever. I used a tutorial first, and then recreated the ones I used in the original site. I was surprised at how easy they are to use, which, I suppose, is the point. Julian's had a look at the page and aside from a couple of typos that will be fixed tomorrow night, he thinks it looks good. Also, he's ammenable to the use of images. So, I'm going to try to get a hold of some on Monday. I was thinking of creating a sort of photo montage that can be a transparent image underneath the text. A good idea, I think, and quite tasteful.

If all goes well, I might actually be able to play D&D on Sunday, but I'm not sure. I'd like to, but first I'd like to find my character sheet. Arg ! Why is it that the important things are the first to disappear? *wink*

At half past four yesterday afternoon, I received the revised Call for Submissions. Finally. I didn't do anything with it last night since Rick was coming over so tonight's the big night. Tonight I get busy !

We watched West Wing last night, and, as usual, it was good. We watched part of that horrible Amazing Race show, and as they introduced the people, I knew I didn't care. Though, I kind of hope the strict Baptist and his gay son win. We flipped to that 50 Years of the CBC thing hosted by Rick Mercer. It was kind of funny. Last night was CBC television during the 70s. Tonight it will be the 80s. If I watch anything, though, it will likely be the CSI show. Going back to Rick Mercer for a moment, I have to wonder, why is he the CBC's golden boy lately? Yes, his Talking to Americans was funny, but I'm not sure I understand the love affair. Oh well.

Willi broke my spider plant. Again. It seems her widening hips make it hard for her to judge where to land and how to turn about on the window sill. Looks like I'll have to bite the bullet and go buy some potting soil and a new pot on Sunday. It's a good thing spider plants are nearly impossible to kill. It just goes right on sprouting babies and flowers. Rick was a good guy and cleaned up the mess that Willi had made. I couldn't deal with it this morning, not if I wanted to be on time, anyway. Big smoochy thanks to Rick for taking care of the plant.

What does one do with an incredibly irritating, adorable cat? She drives me so insane at night that I dream of declawing her. I absolutely hate declawing cats, because it mutilates their paws. I do understand that there is a new way to do it that leaves the joints intact, and I might even consider it because she can get agressive, be horribly destructive, and drives me out of my mind when she picks the bottom of my door to wake me up at night. I don't know. I love her to pieces, but she really is a pain in the ass. Oh well, who needs to sleep anyway, right?

I think I'm going insane. I keep hearing things that aren't there. I could have sworn I heard a subway door chime, but since I work on the fourth floor of the museum, it seems rather unlikely, even if the ROM is above a station. It's a creepy feeling this sensation of dwindling sanity. They say that if you think you're nuts, you probably aren't. I'm counting on that.

Last night, I went over to Megan's house. It's in a bit of turmoil since she and Chris broke up and he was finishing up moving his stuff, and her other roommate, Chantal, gave notice, too. Megan's looked better. She's put on weight and is even paler than she usually is, but it was great to see her. We've missed each other very much, neither making much effort to hold up the friendship as each of us fought our seperate private battles. We watched Buffy, which rocked, and then a new show called Haunted, which didn't entirely suck and we'll watch again, and topped it off with Angel. If I'm not working to deadline next Tuesday, we're going to do it again.

Speaking of deadlines, at least the Imaging Centre got back to me. I'll deal with that tomorrow. I've grabbed the ROM book, Worlds to Explore, which sort of takes the reader through a vague tour of the different galleries. I've already marked four images I wouldn't mind using. Of course, having the final copy to work with would be nice. I think it's time for a phone call. On top of that Dawn wants costume designs. I'm going to explode. Scream. Flail about madly. Something dramatic to appropriately show how pulled I feel. If I could just get that copy ! Gar ! *mildly freaking out*

In fairness, I shall endeavour to create a list of names that I like. This is not a list of potential baby names, I don't particularly dream of having babies, but I do have very strong preferences for certain names.

Adelaide, Stephen, David, Jude, Claire (hi mom !), Anne, Phalar, Thomas, Jack, Ben, Kieran, Megan (and with an H, but not spelled Meagan), Ian, Catherine, Emma, Aaron, Isaac, Ellen, Justin, Chavah, Olivia, Robert, Jeffrey (and with a G), Julie, Evan, Gregory, Nigel, Johanna, Nathaniel (Nathan), Jasmine, Laurel, Lucifer (shush, it means 'bringer of light'), Michael, Vivian (for either male or female),Claudia, Uriel, and Eshe.

I can hear the membership peeps discussing future 'incentives' to draw in more members and ensure that members renew. It's sort of interesting how they discuss it. It's very consumer-driven and quite mercantile. We the public don't often think about how much planning goes into the annoying direct mailings that come, or even the scripts that are used, and the trouble-shooting and scenarios that must be considered. They're also discussing hospital visits and injuries, but I guess it can't be all work, all the time, eh?

I took a walk at lunch today; headed over to the Manulife Centre to buy some stuff at the Pharma Plus there. I couldn't help but marvel at today. The previous warm weather record was set in 1988 at 27C, but today it hit 28C (go, Toronto?!) and did actually make 34C with the humidex, but because there's a gentle breeze, and the sun's not so high in the sky, it doesn't feel as bad as it could. I had a very nice walk in the sun, and for now, I've decided that I will enjoy this strange Indian Summer. The long-range prediction, as bespoken by the Weather Network, will remain a bit warm, but cooling right down next week. I wonder if they will be right.