Friday, August 10, 2007

   Happiness and the Fish
So I was at a friend's place the other night. She's leaving to go to England for a couple of weeks, so we got a few people together. She told us that her grandmother whom she didn't really get to know very well died a few days earlier. She was telling us some stories and about this giant teddy bear that someone had given her grandmother during her stay in the hospital. Apparantly, Nana said to the bear, "now Freddie, you can sleep with me, but if you get fresh, I'm going to have to slap you. And if you misbehave, I'll have to throw you out the window and you might get hit by a car." So as a tribute to Nana, we took a teddy bear, put a dish towel cape on it and launched it off the third floor balcony. We sent R down to catch it, and S was going to take a picture, but missed the shot. So R tried to throw the bear back up to us. It got stuck on the second floor balcony. Whoops. So P and I had to go down to the neighbour's place and ask him to retrieve it. P says "ummm... he's wearing a cape?" Y'know.. to distinguish it from all the OTHER teddy bears stuck on the balcony.. *eye roll* But hilarious. And then I walked into the screen door.

I ripped my shirt at work today. It got caught on the sharp corner of the table. I felt justified in buying a new one, even though I'm sure it can be fixed. I just wanted a new shirt. Erm... another one. It's red.

I'm thinking about a site theme change. Any great ideas? I'm kinda thinking about Ruby Gloom.

Or maybe An Our Lady Peace theme. I just kind of feel like I need a little project. Nothing too complicated, but something. Hmmm...
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Monday, August 6, 2007

True Love Will Find You in the End
It's been a long week at work. Seven days in a row is kind of rough, but I'm glad to be out doing something and getting paid for it. Now if I could just control my newfound urge to buy clothes, I might be able to save some money to actually pay for school...

My wrist feels much better than it did last week. So I guess I just did something to it... like moved it in a weird way or something. I'm still trying to be careful not to rest it on the edge of the desk when I type.. That may have aggravated it..

I had a little bit of spare time, so at the recommendation of a friend, (some of you might remember Winn... ) I'm trying out a game called EVE Online, and I must say... Complicated game is complicated!!! The premise is that your're a starship captain and you go around in space destroying pirates, mining asteroids and stuff like that. I thought I was getting the hang of it, but obviously, I was wrong. I have no clue what I'm doing and the tutorial isn't really much help. I find it terrible that a computer game is making me feel so stupid. At least, I don't THINK I'm very stupid. Anyways, my review thus far is... too complicated, too many icons to click on, too many things you're just expected to know once you complete the tutorial, etcetera. I give it a thumbs down, but if you're a sucker for punishment, you can do the 14 day trial version. Just google "EVE online". Look, here's a screencap. Not my character or account, but whatever..



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Friday, August 3, 2007

   Hospital Music!
Matt Good's latest album "Hospital Music" has finally been released. Um, actually it was available on Tuesday, but I just picked my copy up today. It is an album of fantastic quality and meaningful songs. You know the kind of feeling you get when you find a band where every one of their songs has a lyric that just seems relevant to you or some event in your life? That's what Matty McGood does for me.

In other news, my wrist hurts. I may have banged it on something at work earlier this week, but I can't remember doing something like that. I've been worried that it might be carpel tunnel, which I'm HOPING that I'm far too young to have, but you never know. It just feels a bit bruised at the bottom of my palm, and a little stiff since I've been babying it for the last couple of days.. Hopefully it'll go away after a few days..

Hanyways.... I've discovered this comedy group. The Vestibules. Or Radio Free Vestibules... I'm not entirely sure which it is.. but I've been giggling at this stupid sketch. It's stupid. But funny. You'll probably laugh.. while losing brain cells. Go ahead and stop the song and play this thing..

Have a great weekend.. and remember, viscous substances!!
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Sunday, July 29, 2007

   The Devil's in Your Details
So a week later and I haven't posted anything about the wedding. I did a really really long LJ entry about it, but I don't want to bore anyone.. = P So.... the details... the details...

Friday: Drove to Regina, SK. Met up at the hotel with a few family members and had beer in the hotel pub while watching a football game. Sask. Roughriders vs. The Edmonton Eskimos (from Alberta). We left at halftime. Edmonton was down 20 points. Met up with other various aunts, uncles and cousins and congregated in one of the rooms. Checked in on the game and it turns out Edmonton won by ONE POINT! Haha. We won. Take that Saskies. Bedtime soon followed.

Saturday: Woke up to rumblings of thunder and a dark grey sky. Sad because it was wedding day. Went to breakfast and just after entering the restaurant it began to hail. Marble sized hailstones for a good while. The wedding wasn't until later in the afternoon so it cleared up nicely and was actually ridiculously hot. Between breakfast and the wedding I got dragged to an antique mall. I bought some cool pins for my jacket or backpack or whatever. The one little tiny one says "Christ died for the ungodly!" Just my style, eh? The wedding was nice. Not overly fancy or long. The reception was nice too, although I ended up being kind of a babysitter for my cousin's little two year old. It wasn't terrible. He's only two and therefore still remotely cuddly, and still young enough to be entertained by the "hide the spoon with the napkin" game.

Sunday: Shopping at Costco, Wally World and Home Depot. I didn't shop so much as be dragged around in the heat. It was up to nearly 50 degrees with the humidity from the rain. Family BBQ at my aunt and uncle's place in the evening. I developed a massive headache on the car ride back to the hotel, followed by moderate nausea. No barf though. That's the good news. Also, dizziness upon entering the air conditioned hotel room. Watching Just for Laughs on the Comedy Network took my mind off it. Sleep.

Monday: Driving home, westward. Stopped in Moose Jaw to take the tunnel tours. They've got two tours. One describes the story of the Chinese immigrants to Canada in the 1800s. Not a proud part of Canadian history as these people paid a "head tax" of $50 per immigrant which soon increased to $500 per person. They worked long hours in harsh conditions for very little pay and lived in deplorable conditions, often in the same place as they worked, Chinese Laundries, for example. Your guide plays somewhat of a role and takes you through the underground tunnels which simulate what living and working conditions might have been like for these people.

The second tour deals with Al Capone and the suspicion that he may have spent some time in Moose Jaw. So the tour group plays the role of bootleggers and your guides lead you through the tunnels in an attempt to escape and get out with your booze. It's probably more fiction that fact, but very entertaining nonetheless..

If you click HERE you can take a virtual animated mini tour and see what kind of fun it is. So after that we just drove on home. Somewhat nice to be back, but it was really good to see all my family. Have a great weekend, rock on!
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Friday, July 20, 2007

   Running for Home
I'm off to Saskatchewan for a wedding this weekend. You won't hear from me until monday at the earliest. Maybe not for a while after that either. it hasn't been a very good day. At all. As it stands I'm looking at about three hours of sleep if I go right now. So, I'm gone. G'night.. rock on and all that good stuff..
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Thursday, July 19, 2007

   Hello Time Bomb
Well the bison steaks turned out pretty great. They had been marinated in a couple of pints of beer (Traditional I think, which is brewed in Alberta) and seasoned with brown sugar and rosemary. Grilling it for about five minutes on each side gives you a medium rare steak. The roasted veggies are just red and green pepper, mushrooms, baby corn and asparagus tossed in olive oil and some vegetable seasoning from the Club House people. Now, for the sauce... I tried it a different way than the recipe says to do it, but it didn't work out so well, so here's the recipe the right way.. = P

2 tbsp. melted butter
1 1/4 cups milk
1 cup fresh bread crumbs
1/2 cup chopped AND toasted walnuts
pinch of nutmeg
fresh grated parmasan cheese

First, toast the walnuts under the broiler (or on the BBQ grill). So then you melt the butter in a saucepan and add the milk. When it's simmering but not boiling add the breadcrumbs and stir constantly. They'll turn to mush and help make it thick. Toss in the walnuts and nutmeg and a bit of the cheese, maybe two tablespoons or so. If you add too much cheese, it just goes gooey and not creamy (I made that mistake today... d'oh!), so not too much cheese. When it's nice and creamy, pour over your pasta and toss. Done and done.

Click to see it bigger. Photobucket was being a pain so I had to find a backup place to host it. For the record, filehost.to is crap and their clickable thumbnails do not work.
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Wednesday, July 18, 2007

   I Miss New Wave
One of my coworkers just quit. I worked my last shift with her yesterday. Why, oh why does everyone leave me? *le-sigh* All I did was unpack stock yesterday. We usually have 8 boxes or so delivered twice a week. But yesterday we had 34 boxes. *dies* Even with two of us working on it, we didn't get them all done. And it wasn't even GOOD stuff. It was all pretty hideous. Like crochet sweaters in ugly shades of beige. Blech. And coats. It's 35 degrees outside and I'm unpacking coats. Go figure.

My friend Paige is picking up some bison (buffalo) meat and coming over later to BBQ it up. I've never had bison before. Apparantly I've had deer and moose meat though. We've got some friends who do some hunting and have probably never bought beef from a store. It's kind of a fun surprise when you go to their place for a BBQ and you ask, "so what's my burger made of today?" and they'll tell you it's elk or something like that. Anyways, so we're having bison and I'm going to make this walnut cream sauce that goes over pasta. It's really delicious. If it turns out, maybe I'll post the recipe later on.. It's very eay. I like to pretend that I can cook... = D
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Sunday, July 15, 2007

   Pledge of Allegiance
Sooooo.... Welcome to the new-ish site.. I decided it was time for a change from the dark colors I usually like to use around here. I'll be sticking with the Matty McGood theme until the release of the album at least (15 days). Then I might think about changing it. Maybe.. Plus he's now been added to my Facebook friends, so that's uber cool.

Anyways, as for tales from retail, in addition to the importance of shaving the pits, we must also add to the list the (EXTREME) importance of deodorant/anti-perspirant/personal hygeine. If after you leave, I have to Febreze all the clothes you've just tried on as well as the fitting room you've just used, you're obviously doing it wrong. *dies*

Also, they keep sending us hangers. Or someone keeps ordering them. One of the two. The hanger racks in the back room are exploding with stupid hangers. I try to pack up a schwack of them every couple of days but to no avail. There are now about twenty boxes of hangers stacked up in the back room. And the back room isn't very big. If I stop posting for a large length of time, you can assume the boxes have fallen on me and I'm trapped, and then you can send help, please. *nods*

I also noticed that MyOtaku has just hit 500,000 members. Holy cow! Happy Sunday!
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Friday, July 13, 2007

   My Out Of Style Is Coming Back
I woke up this morning to a nosebleed. I haven't had one of those in a while. And I felt fortunate that it wasn't very bad and stopped within minutes.

In a recent LiveJournal entry I wanted to stress the importance, ladies, of wearing a bra that actually fits. Having worked in a clothing store for only three short months I have seen waaaaayyyyy more bad fitting bras than I ever thought I would. Like, women who have permanent indentations in their shoulders. I mean... Ow. That can't be comfortable, so why not DO something about it? Like buy a new bra please. I would also like to stress the importance of shaving your pits. Even when you're 65. Do it, dammit. ALSO... the importance of standing up straight. I know I sound like your nagging mom, but things (i.e: clothing) look much nicer when you have nice posture.

Yes... well... that was my post for the day. *ahem* maybe I'll have something more entertaining to say tomorrow, eh?
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Thursday, July 12, 2007

   Generation X-Wing
Alright.. So I've decided I'd make a pretty good vegetarian. We've got this vegetarian cookbook that was a gift for my sister back when she went veggie. She didn't eat any meat for a good five years or so, and then one day she dicided that she really, really needed chicken. So she ate a bunch of chicken and then was violently ill because her system wasn't used to having any meat in it. Anyways, that's beside the point. I like to cook. But I'm no good with meat. I just never really know what to do with it. I mean, I can toss a burger on the grill or nuke that pre-cooked bacon, but if you give me a package of chicken legs, I just have no clue. And this cookbook has some tasty sounding recipes in it. Like "Curly Spaghetti with Walnut Cream". Delicious! And I can make tomato sauce out of fresh tomatoes and herbs and spices and stuff like that. It's just the meat...

I'm also thinking that it's time for me to buy an mp3 player or an iPod or something of that nature. My CD player is great, pretty compact, and I enjoy the rechargeable batteries. Only problem is that they don't last very long anymore after I charge them. I think my dad actually bought an mp3 player. Maybe I'll steal it. Actually.. I think he also has a CD player... Maybe I'll steal THAT. or BOTH! I'm so bad. Mwahahaha. But I loves my tunes. Especially when I'm out walking. So I'll let ya know how the covert, music playing device theft goes. Keep on rockin' in the free world.
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