ShinyPlasticBag

Things that I love include: Kraft Dinner. Mm, KD is the best food ever. Perhaps, dare I say, the food of the gods. Mm. Mark is content. Allow me to tell you about my boring week.

Remember that SUPER FLYING DISC that I bought last week? I found a use for it: Monday, after a game of croquet with Janet, Keddy, and Adam, I accidentally invented a new sport. Keddy helped, and Adam and Janet participated in the inaugral game. It's tentatively called Frisbee Stick. Here's how it works.

Each player has a stick of approximately 60 cm. We were using the croquet mallets, with the mallet end removed. One player is the Frisbee thrower, who lobs the Frisbee towards the other players. They trying to catch the Frisbee on their stick. Succeeding in doing so awards one point to the catcher, who then becomes the thrower. If, after five consecutive throws, no one has caught the Frisbee, whoever was the previous thrower goes up to throw again, and so on. The first person to eleven points wins. It sounds weird, I know, but it's very fun.

Nothing interesting happened on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Steve went out and bought himself new rims and tires for his car. They're nice, and he got a pretty good deal. Congratulate him. Today, I had to go to work for a training session on the hospital's new consent form. At this point, there are more than 70 different consent forms used for various purposes throughout the hospital. Starting on Monday, there's one form that's replacing all of the others. Sounds like a plan to me. Anyway, all registration clerk types, such as myself, were required to attend an information session on how the new system works.

And that brings us up to right now. A very dull week, I think. Next week should be more exciting — I hope. I'm going to go watch the movie Merlin now, but before I go, I'd like to remind you all of something awesome: Tony. And a sheep. Such awesomitude.

• Written on 28 April 2005 & posted at 11:54 PM.
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Last week, whilst waiting for my mom to finish up with a hair appointment, I wandered into a dollar store. I bought a Frisbee — sorry, “SUPER FLYING DISC” — and a Rubik's Cube — sorry, “PUZZLE Cube”. I've wanted a Rubik's Cube for a little while now, but I haven't actually seen them anyway. I figured that I could waste a dollar and try one out. Unfortunately, waste was definitely the right word, since the cube broke twice before I even got home. It quickly became apparent that I required a real Rubik's Cube, which was easier said than done. After more than an hour of frantic searching on Friday, I went to work empty-handed and vowed to find one on Saturday, which I did: Toy's “R” Us had precisely three. Make that two.

So, I now have Rubik's Cube. How random is that? It's retro and frustrating and utterly awesome. Right now, I can only get one side done with any amount of reliability. The world record guy can solve a cube in under twenty seconds, whilst blindfolded. I don't think I ever want to get that good.

Anyway, I'm just vegging around the house as usual, watching Home Delivery, um, as usual. I'm not sure where they manage to find all of the strippers and drag queens and transvestites that make up the bulk of their guests, but it sure is good TV. I especially love how they offer paternity tests for anyone who's doubtful before every commercial break.

Ah, what heights human culture has fallen to. At any rate, surely I'm not the only one who likes shameful shows like this. Am I?

• Written on 25 April 2005 & posted at 01:53 PM.
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I go through phases where I listen to really crappy bands, or watch really bad television shows. I'm not sure why, but since school stopped, I've found myself watching Home Delivery on Fox. It's a really crap cross between a heap of other shows, but I'm watching my third day in a row and all three have had paternity tests on them. I find them absolutely hilarious: if you don't know who the father of your kid is, that's the most pathetic thing ever. That being said, it's good TV.

Anyway, the exciting car cleaning actually happened yesterday, because my mom ended up needing the car on Tuesday. I only got to do a basic cleaning on the outside of our car due to a lack of time, but the inside is sparkly clean. Steve spent more than $100 on cleaning supplies and almost three hours just to wax his car. Eesh. I have no such patience.

Ick. The car — I mean, cat — just puked on the carpet in the living room: I am not impressed. I should go deal with that. If anyone has any exciting ideas for amusement, give me a call.

Question of the day: Everyone calls Home Depot “Home Depot”. Yet, in the US, the signs all say The Home Depot. Contrast and compare: Canadian site, American site. Anyone have any conspiracy theories?

• Written on 21 April 2005 & posted at 01:23 PM.
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Hello, world. I've emerged from my backshift-y weekend in one piece, having had three of the most boring shifts in recording history. As I've said before, since I work in an emergency room, a slow shift is definitely a good thing, in terms of society and karma and stuff. It does, however, make for a long night.

I spent Friday doing pretty much nothing, but on Saturday, I went to a barbecue at Planet AJKPT. Adam (“A”), you see, got a big back-pay cheque from work and decided that they needed a barbecue. The funny/sad part is that he was at work when the barbecue was inaugerated, since he works non-stop. Anyway, good times were had by all (the housemates + Keddy, Steve, Janet/Katie's parents, David, Russell, Amanda, Baby, and self). The weather has been absolutely fantastic lately — normally, the first barbecue of the rain is done in winter coats, and eaten inside. Oh, Canada.

On Sunday, Janet and I went to a “Country Music Jamboree” thing that my mom was singing at with Joey and Mary Ann. It was...country...tastic. Yeah. Yodelling should definitely not be legal. Janet raised a good point by surveying the audience and then asking “Why is it that as you as you turn sixty, you want your sneakers to be as white as humanly possible?” The best thing to come out of the whole thing is that some old lady from the middle of nowhere named a cow after my Mom. Somewhere in rural Nova Scotia, there is a cow named Angie. I'm not sure if that's awesome or really, really sad, but I'm glad that people — no matter how rural — like my mom.

Anyway, that brings the world up to speed. I've got to be at work at 3:00 today, and then tomorrow is the First Car Cleaning of the year! As you know, this is an epic event for me: I haven't cleaned the car since October or so. Eesh! And on that note, the new Chevrolet Aveo 5 commercial with the old lady is utterly fantastic.

• Written on 18 April 2005 & posted at 01:14 PM.
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I have an unusual personality quirk: it's sometimes possible, nay, likely, for me to get a song stuck in my head, without being able to remember what the song is. I don't mean that I could have, say, “First Day of My Life” (by Bright Eyes) stuck in my head, and not be able to remember that it's called “First Day of my Life”. I mean, I can't remember any of the song, or even the tune, but it's still stuck in my head. I think I get the idea of the song stuck in my head. Does this happen to anyone else? It kept me up last night. Such a dork.

Today is the day of my last final. Final final. Whatever. I definitely can't wait to get school over with for the year, but I then enter a mini-Blitzkreig of work (tonight, Friday, Saturday, Monday), so I don't get to do any major relaxation until Tuesday. I have no idea what it will be, but I definitely have to get in to visit Baby more often than I do now. I've only seen him twice in the past two months, and apparently he can talk and stuff now.

In real life, I spent yesterday wildly running around to get a group project completed. It has turned out pretty fantastic (it's hard to get excited over group projects, but this one really did turn out quite nicely). I spent a bit of time sitting around Halifax Shopping Center, waiting for my mom to have her eyes examined by NovaVision. She's thinking of getting laser eye surgery, and wants me to get it to. As much as I'd love to lose the glasses, once I learned how the whole thing works, I was completely turned off of the idea. It just seems to very gross to me. Anyway, the experience of being at the mall wasn't bad: they had a Second Cup within range of Radio Shack's open wireless access point. I never actually connected, due to be amused by other things, but it's nice to know that I could have. (I'm such a dork.)

Anyway, I have to go catch a bus to school. Is anyone else getting an absolutely obscene amount of spam on their Gmail account now?

• Written on 14 April 2005 & posted at 12:01 PM.
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I really, really like the new Garbage album (Bleed Like Me). Garbage albums always have themes, and the theme of this one seems to be break-ups. (In case you never noticed, the first Garbage CD was mostly about religion, Version 2.0 was mainly about drugs, and BeautifulGarbage was mostly about sex.) All of the songs are good, but I'm a particular fan of tracks nine (“Boys Wanna Fight”) and ten (“Why Don't You Come Over”).

I'm up a lot earlier than usual, studying for my first exam (network security). I woke up at 8:15 — the only way I could reliably force myself to get up early was by going to bed around 9:30. Lame, I know. Things that piss me off today include: the general lack of information online about how the Secure Electronic Transaction protocol suite operates. I will kill whoever decided to give a particular system such a generic name. Remember me to create a program someday called Desktop Application.

After this exam, I've got my user interface design exam tomorrow and then a day off before my last exam, which should be pretty easy anyway. I can't wait. I have to catch a bus in about half an hour, though, so I should get back to studying. Seriously, get a copy of the Bleed Like Me. It's awesome.

• Written on 11 April 2005 & posted at 10:37 AM.
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Congratulate me, folks, my Visa is finally paid off! That means that the first goal of my Extreme Responsible Budget has been met successfully.

The next goal is to pay off my laptop, which has about $530 left to go. With some extra shifts at work, I should be out of debt in no time.

Anyway, I was cruising through the wonders of del.icio.us yesterday when I found a very cool high-resolution panorama of the Pope-mourning in Saint Peter's Square. Perhaps even more interesting is the Taiwan protest march — not to get all political, but I think I'm siding with them, even though they make crappy dollar store toys. The old guy with the red flag is awesome. Anyway, the quality on these files is absolutely amazing.

Our next door neighbours are doing, um, something to their roof. They've been banging away since the ass-crack of dawn. This normally wouldn't be anything more than slightly annoying, except for the fact that I didn't get home until 3:30 or so thanks to a spontaneous Pritchett Party (that is, a road trip into the country that has no purpose). Pugsley and Katie went too, and both of them were pretty much asleep for most of the way home. I'm not really sure where we went, but Truro was in there something, and so was the world's longest train. I think my goal for the summer is to go on at least two of these useless adventures a month, and to take lots of photos. I never take photos anymore.

Anyway, I'm in the mood for a little retro Super Nintendo action. Call me if you need me, and cheer on my behalf, because there's less than 172 hours until I'm free for the summer.

• Written on 07 April 2005 & posted at 01:18 PM.
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I am CRAZY tired. The time changed completely destroyed my sleeping pattern — I slept in too late yesterday, and was unable to get to sleep this morning until 5:30. There is absolutely nothing in the entire world that is more disheartening than trying to get to sleep when the buses start to run. It's only 3:05 in the afternoon and I feel like I'm going to die.

Life is thereotically pretty great, though. In the world of school, both of the presentations I had to do are out of way, and both went well. My final network security assignment is within 10 minutes of completion. My two group projects are both waiting for other people to be complete. I'm doing good. In terms of non-school, my Pee Wee Herman DVD is marked as “out for delivery” on the tracking page.

In the real world, it's been pouring for days. I'm actually not minding the rain, because it's that sort of cleansing “Spring is here! Get lost, Winter!” sort of rain. The snow — even the crustiest of the crusty snow — seems to be completely gone. My efforts at fitness are coming along pretty well, having run again the night before last and doing pretty well at it. Imagine: me trying to not be a lazy geek. It's unreal.

Anyway, I've got to go concentrate on learning the inner workings of SSL. In homage to Tony, I am incredibly itchy right now.

• Written on 04 April 2005 & posted at 03:11 PM.
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From the category of “Things that are not normal”, guess who went, um, jogging last night? Yes, me. How random and weird is that? Since everyone else (well, everyone from Planet AJKPT, anyway) was doing it, I figured I'd join in. Maybe I'll get in shape someday: as much as I love being a gigantic computer geek, I never want the gigantic part to be literal. Anyway, tonight I'm just vegging around the house with Janet and Mom and Mary Ann, watching Joan of Arcadia (stop judging!) and Seinfeld. Definitely an odd combination.

In sad news, my Pee Wee Herman DVD still hasn't arrived. The annoying part is that it's actually somewhere in Halifax, according to the online tracking thing (which finally updated this afternoon). This means that I have to wait all weekend for it. I hate how there's no mail delivery on the weekends.

Anyway, I need something exciting to do to celebrate the end of the semester. The two big projects I had are pretty much over with (I have a presentation tomorrow afternoon and then just a little compilation/organization to do) and then it's finals. I want to do something absolutely epic.

• Written on 01 April 2005 & posted at 08:56 PM.
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