Senator Starbucks
Feb. 17th, 2010 06:57 amTwo dreams I remember distinctly this morning.
First, I was in Starbucks with my reusable Frapuccino cup (size Venti, but I always order smaller and often receive extra anyway; I also receive a ten cent discount every time!) and on the shelf I saw another smaller reusable cup with a post-it note inside in my handwriting. The note said something about the cup being lost, and I knew that the cup was actually mine, that I had forgotten it there. So I grabbed it and headed for the cash carrying both that I already owned, even though I've only ever purchased one. I think there was something else about pricing too but that's faded already.
Second, I was a Senator at some level, in a boardroom with several others who were the "real" senators - serious, bribe-taking, partisan US-style senators. I don't think of Canada's senators that way. Anyway, I don't remember what triggered it, but I ended up in some confrontation with them and was basically quitting in ultra-dramatic fashion. Claiming that I wasn't like them, it was obvious they wouldn't let me stay, they sucked, etc. At the table were someone who looked like George Smitherman, someone who looked like Arianna Huffington, and several others who I don't remember or never figured out who they were supposed to be.
Far more dreamage than I usually remember, so I thought I should write them down quick.
First, I was in Starbucks with my reusable Frapuccino cup (size Venti, but I always order smaller and often receive extra anyway; I also receive a ten cent discount every time!) and on the shelf I saw another smaller reusable cup with a post-it note inside in my handwriting. The note said something about the cup being lost, and I knew that the cup was actually mine, that I had forgotten it there. So I grabbed it and headed for the cash carrying both that I already owned, even though I've only ever purchased one. I think there was something else about pricing too but that's faded already.
Second, I was a Senator at some level, in a boardroom with several others who were the "real" senators - serious, bribe-taking, partisan US-style senators. I don't think of Canada's senators that way. Anyway, I don't remember what triggered it, but I ended up in some confrontation with them and was basically quitting in ultra-dramatic fashion. Claiming that I wasn't like them, it was obvious they wouldn't let me stay, they sucked, etc. At the table were someone who looked like George Smitherman, someone who looked like Arianna Huffington, and several others who I don't remember or never figured out who they were supposed to be.
Far more dreamage than I usually remember, so I thought I should write them down quick.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif){kind=small}
I even followed the link and it still doesn't make sense. :)
jPod on CBC this summer!
Jun. 1st, 2008 06:23 pmjPod season one is being rebroadcast this summer on CBC - Thursdays at 8pm, starting June 19th. If you get CBC, check it out, especially if you like off-the-wall non-sitcom humour! And here's the favour: tell some of your friends! If CBC gets good ratings, they'll be encouraged to do this sort of thing in future.
If you're outside Canada, jPod can be found online on high-quality bittorrents, and you can watch entire episodes on the CBC jPod website! jPod can also be enjoyed in the original book flavour.
If you're outside Canada, jPod can be found online on high-quality bittorrents, and you can watch entire episodes on the CBC jPod website! jPod can also be enjoyed in the original book flavour.
Take me back to old New Brunswick
May. 19th, 2008 11:33 pmWhat a weekend!
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
1_2_ready_go and I spent the weekend in New Brunswick visiting with family and friends, traveling on Aeroplan points thanks to our house's canny (and common) ability to suck money out of our accounts.
Awake at 5am Saturday, walk to the subway -- with the legally required stop at McDonald's of course -- and here we goooooo!!! (thanks Zach!)
Saturday saw us:
Sunday saw us:
Monday included lots of tiredness, a drive back to Saint John, enduring a bit of inanity on TV, some tasty Chinese-ish food, and now we sit in the airport bored to tears. Damn you Aliant and your wifi hotspot that is neither free nor linked to any other hotspot systems!
Update later: On the approach to YYZ, around 9:30pm Eastern, we had the lovely sight of hundreds of towns, cities, and backyards setting off fireworks for Victoria Day! Nothing is so lovely as seeing an entire metro area twinkle and sparkle quite like that.
Hope everyone else's weekend was fun!
1_2_ready_go and I spent the weekend in New Brunswick visiting with family and friends, traveling on Aeroplan points thanks to our house's canny (and common) ability to suck money out of our accounts.Awake at 5am Saturday, walk to the subway -- with the legally required stop at McDonald's of course -- and here we goooooo!!! (thanks Zach!)
Saturday saw us:
- fly to Saint John
- get our rental car - a Mazda 5, for those curious
- get lunch at the Saint John Superstore
- drive to Fredericton
- visit simplisticton and purplemartini and their chilluns Z and K
- drive to Scotch Lake, which is out past Mactaquac Dam, outside Fredericton, to stay with Vin's mom
- eat too much
Sunday saw us:
- eat breakfast at the Diplomat (the (in?)famous 24-hour Chinese-ish-and-Canadian restaurant beside the
SheratonDelta - go for a 40-minute run (Vinny only)
- Visit the UNB campus and walk around in the throes of nostalgia (Cam only)
- off to find samosas (which are only assembled correctly in Fredericton -- I don't claim to understand, and I don't claim authenticity, I only claim absolute truth. Is that too much?)
- next to Memere and Pepere's house. Say hello, refuse food several times, and fail to fix the allegedly universal remote control (Cam only)
- off to Future Shop to find a better universal remote control without any USB-ness (Vinny's grandparents are not in the target market for Harmony remotes)
- remote works, first try. yay!
- O'Dell Park (no more fenced-in deer!)
- Superstore (low-fat but let's be serious not really healthy either coffee cake!)
- Ben and Jackie's for another quick visit
- back to Scotch Lake for dinner
Visiting campus was fun. I walked around Head Hall, the engineering and computer-science building, which really consists of a Frankenstein's Monster combination of many different additions. The biggest building on campus, I think. Anyway, I wandered around the newest piece, the Information Technology Centre (ITC), which didn't exist yet when I was attending UNB. I found various familiar professors' names on doors -- they had been moved out of the crappy older bits of the building once brand new offices were built -- and I also spotted something else familiar: a Safe Space sticker.
When I was at UNB, I (along with a couple queer-friendly administrators) started the UNB Safe Space program. Stickers on office doors to say you're cool with the queer kids. Fredericton went through some rough times in the late 90s for us GLBTQ* types (phobic mayor, nasty letters to the editor, freaking-out residence Don, blah blah blah) so it was a fight back tool. I'm still a little thrilled each time I visit the site and see that it's still in operation, although I think it's fairly quiet now -- once there were many stickers out there, it's hard to do much else I guess.
Next I visited Memorial Hall, the campus theatre where I sacrificed at least a half point of my GPA over four years or so. No regrets! The theatre itself was locked, but the rest of the building was open so I wandered around, clearly the only soul in the building (this was 10am on a Sunday of a long weekend during the summer) and yet free to wander. I love Fredericton. Anyway, I wasn't able to break into the theatre by any of the many ways I knew, sadly. I wandered the basement and into the utility areas that led to the Green Room under the stage, and the stupid room was locked. (as it should be, really. Drunken theatre junkies make messes.) I did see through the door's window that old Theatre UNB production posters have been mounted on the walls of the Green Room under plexiglass, including in a nice high spot my show Lilies (yes, the John Greyson movie one). Yay! That made me pleased too.
Truth be told, I could have wandered campus for another two hours without getting bored, so next time we visit I'll have to try to make it a weekday so I can visit people I know. Maybe Vin can plan a two-hour run or something. But it was time to pick him up from his run by this point, so here we goooooo!!!
On the way back, we passed a small cemetery, which has been there for many years. Except this time, there was a brand new cheap pinewood box sitting by the road, approximately the shape of a casket delivery box, if there is such a thing. We did not stop to investigate.
Monday included lots of tiredness, a drive back to Saint John, enduring a bit of inanity on TV, some tasty Chinese-ish food, and now we sit in the airport bored to tears. Damn you Aliant and your wifi hotspot that is neither free nor linked to any other hotspot systems!
Update later: On the approach to YYZ, around 9:30pm Eastern, we had the lovely sight of hundreds of towns, cities, and backyards setting off fireworks for Victoria Day! Nothing is so lovely as seeing an entire metro area twinkle and sparkle quite like that.
Hope everyone else's weekend was fun!
Ahhh, life in the big city.
Nov. 18th, 2007 11:47 amScene: Three young mothers pushing strollers with babies in them down the subway platform, Sunday morning, 10:45am.
Young mother pushing stroller with baby in it #1: "One word: eat a dick."
Young mother pushing stroller with baby in it #2: "What?"
Young mother pushing stroller with baby in it #1: "One word! Eat A Dick!"
Young mother pushing stroller with baby in it #2: "What?"
Young mother pushing stroller with baby in it #1: "One word--"
Young mother pushing stroller with baby in it #3: "Sshhh!"
Young mother pushing stroller with baby in it #1: "Eat a dick."
Young mother pushing stroller with baby in it #2: (pause) "What?"
(this is what you're missing out on,![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
msvu20!)
Young mother pushing stroller with baby in it #1: "One word: eat a dick."
Young mother pushing stroller with baby in it #2: "What?"
Young mother pushing stroller with baby in it #1: "One word! Eat A Dick!"
Young mother pushing stroller with baby in it #2: "What?"
Young mother pushing stroller with baby in it #1: "One word--"
Young mother pushing stroller with baby in it #3: "Sshhh!"
Young mother pushing stroller with baby in it #1: "Eat a dick."
Young mother pushing stroller with baby in it #2: (pause) "What?"
(this is what you're missing out on,
msvu20!)Indescribable
Apr. 15th, 2007 05:56 pmWelcome, friends. Once again here at Channel-9, we set out to bring you the stories that matter. The stories that you don't get anywhere else. The stories that are almost entirely not made up.
Tonight, we'll meet a young (Cut to couple: "yes we're still young. Write down young!") couple in East York ("No, say Toronto. East York is so passé. Is that Case Ootes over there? Duck!") who recently moved to the city, and wanted a way to pass the time on a Sunday afternoon.
First, they rode the streetcar to Little Italy, only to find that almost everything was closed. Not just normal closed, but kind of The Quiet Earth closed. There was a church with a SOLD sign on it, and a notice on the door about the city cutting the power to the entire neighbourhood for most of the day.
Next, lunch at a little bakery that was in fact Portuguese. Really European too, in that "interesting approach to the concept of customer service" kind of way. Yummy cakes.
Next, a walk to Bloor and Bathurst to work off perhaps 3% of the cakes. Why Bloor and Bathurst? What can be found on this fascinating corner? Why, Honest Ed's of course! Honest Ed's is a Toronto ... ummm... the normal word here would be institution, but that should maybe be used in the mental institution sense. Perhaps landmark. That's safe and neutral. It hardly begins to convey this, though:
Tonight, we'll meet a young (Cut to couple: "yes we're still young. Write down young!") couple in East York ("No, say Toronto. East York is so passé. Is that Case Ootes over there? Duck!") who recently moved to the city, and wanted a way to pass the time on a Sunday afternoon.
First, they rode the streetcar to Little Italy, only to find that almost everything was closed. Not just normal closed, but kind of The Quiet Earth closed. There was a church with a SOLD sign on it, and a notice on the door about the city cutting the power to the entire neighbourhood for most of the day.
Next, lunch at a little bakery that was in fact Portuguese. Really European too, in that "interesting approach to the concept of customer service" kind of way. Yummy cakes.
Next, a walk to Bloor and Bathurst to work off perhaps 3% of the cakes. Why Bloor and Bathurst? What can be found on this fascinating corner? Why, Honest Ed's of course! Honest Ed's is a Toronto ... ummm... the normal word here would be institution, but that should maybe be used in the mental institution sense. Perhaps landmark. That's safe and neutral. It hardly begins to convey this, though:
No, this is not Las Vegas. This is also not the whole thing. This is perhaps 25% of the place. No seriously. It's so big we got dehydrated, and not just because of the really-dry, "leftovers bin at Zellers" atmosphere. It made Vinny's knees hurt. I ended up buying a fun t-shirt for $6 which you may see in a later photo.
Ed Mirvish, owner of Honest Ed's, is someone I rapidly learned about in his store today. It seems he pretty much owned Toronto for much of the last 59 years. I found a newspaper ad for a new restaurant he opened like 20 years ago, and it listed five other restaurants -- plus the Royal Alexandria Theatre of course -- that he'd opened previously. Wikipedia doesn't mention them, so they may be all gone now. Maybe I'll research them on a day off sometime.
His theatre experience led him to meet many actors, famous and non. The store is wallpapered with framed, signed photos from the many many names, big and small. There were dozens and dozens I didn't recognize, and many that I did. Frank Schuster was stuck in the basement, so god knows how the ranking was determined.
I'm not really sure what my point was in all of this. Clearly it was in fact describable, but I'm done now. Hope all are well.
His theatre experience led him to meet many actors, famous and non. The store is wallpapered with framed, signed photos from the many many names, big and small. There were dozens and dozens I didn't recognize, and many that I did. Frank Schuster was stuck in the basement, so god knows how the ranking was determined.
I'm not really sure what my point was in all of this. Clearly it was in fact describable, but I'm done now. Hope all are well.
Unusual salutation.
Feb. 20th, 2007 04:05 pmSo there's this vendor we work with in the US who provides our classroom evaluation collection and reporting. They're in Chicago, but our main rep has an unusual manner of speaking that makes her sound like she's from Tennessee or Louisiana or the moon or something -- I can't quite place it.
Whenever she calls me, it's "Hiiii Cameron, (long pause) THIS is Ava? From CompanyName? (long pause) I just waaaaaanted to talk tooo you..." etc.
Anyway, today she sent me an email with this signoff. I again must ask, WTF?
Whenever she calls me, it's "Hiiii Cameron, (long pause) THIS is Ava? From CompanyName? (long pause) I just waaaaaanted to talk tooo you..." etc.
Anyway, today she sent me an email with this signoff. I again must ask, WTF?
Have a wonderful day in Canada!
Outlook 2007 Tidbit
Jan. 31st, 2007 03:21 pmI just noticed this interesting behaviour. I can't decide if it's annoying or appropriate.
When Outlook receives an email which requests a read receipt, and it's configured to ask permission first, it does not show you who the message was cc'ed to until you decide whether to confirm that you read it.
So while you ponder the question of "Send read receipt? (yes/no)" the screen displays this:
But after you click Yes or No, the screen displays this:
When Outlook receives an email which requests a read receipt, and it's configured to ask permission first, it does not show you who the message was cc'ed to until you decide whether to confirm that you read it.
So while you ponder the question of "Send read receipt? (yes/no)" the screen displays this:
To: Cameron MacLeod
But after you click Yes or No, the screen displays this:
To: Cameron MacLeod
Cc: George, Tony, Jacques, Angela, Felipe, Stephen, Abe, Zemin, Luiz, Giorgio, Vladimir
Priorities
Jan. 30th, 2007 09:36 am"Sorry Scott [my boss], I can't get that report updated because Colleen [our CEO] needs me to pirate Glengarry Glen Ross off the internet."
Update: She was talking about using it to bring some humour into the office. The first clip I find on YouTube? The first comment says "Yeah, I had a sales manager who shows this for 'motivation'. He was fired pretty quickly."
Also, for those who haven't seen it, the bad word count is pretty intense.
Update: She was talking about using it to bring some humour into the office. The first clip I find on YouTube? The first comment says "Yeah, I had a sales manager who shows this for 'motivation'. He was fired pretty quickly."
Also, for those who haven't seen it, the bad word count is pretty intense.
Heads you'd like to slap
Jan. 21st, 2007 03:36 pmIf you speak a bit of French, or ideally a LOT of French, you owe it to yourself to check out Têtes à claques, Québec's most popular website.
If your French is only so-so, check out the top-rated Le Willi Waller 2006 -- there's plenty there to catch since it's half in English.*
WTF?
* Note: it's every second word sometimes. :)
If your French is only so-so, check out the top-rated Le Willi Waller 2006 -- there's plenty there to catch since it's half in English.*
WTF?
* Note: it's every second word sometimes. :)
Paging Bill Nye!
Jan. 3rd, 2007 07:47 pmI just witnessed science! And I didn't understand it!! It was very startling!!!*
I boiled water for dinner, then turned off the element to wait for Vinny to get home. I saw his bus arrive, so I turned the element on again, and watched it start to bubble ever so slightly from one spot on the bottom. I took off the lid to get ready to put the pasta in, and a small piece of angel-hair pasta fell in early. The water instantly went to a violent boil, from nothing. Zoom!
Like I said: Science! (oooooo!)
* I buy my exclamation points in bulk these days.
I boiled water for dinner, then turned off the element to wait for Vinny to get home. I saw his bus arrive, so I turned the element on again, and watched it start to bubble ever so slightly from one spot on the bottom. I took off the lid to get ready to put the pasta in, and a small piece of angel-hair pasta fell in early. The water instantly went to a violent boil, from nothing. Zoom!
Like I said: Science! (oooooo!)
* I buy my exclamation points in bulk these days.
The mind boggles
Dec. 31st, 2006 07:23 pmI present, for your amusement, the adult titles available on our hotel room TV:
| Title | Banner over Picture | Note under Picture | Picture |
| Totally Threesomes | Super Sized | All Threesomes | One woman in slutty outfit |
| To Die For | AAAA ½ Top 10 | Full Plot Over 2 Hours | One woman in slutty outfit |
| The New Devil In Miss Jones |
| AAAAA | One woman in slutty outfit |
| I Laid Your Hot Mom | | Older Women | One woman in slutty outfit |
| Cheating Neighbors | Voyeur | | One woman in slutty outfit |
| Forbidden Coeds / Young Butt | | Double Feature | One woman in slutty outfit |
| Rod Riders | Quick Start | One woman in slutty outfit | |
| AC/DC Sex | | Alternative | Two hot men with a women between them |
| Barely Legal | Mega Sized (with Hustler Video logo) | Corrupted #7 | Two women in slutty outfits |
| 3 Way Divas | All Threesomes | | One woman in slutty outfit |
| Horny and Wild | | All Sex | One woman in slutty outfit |
| Just Filthy Sex | | Gonzo | One woman in slutty outfit |
| Housewives Unleashed | Reality Sex | Fantasy Series | One woman in slutty outfit |
Some questions should never be answered.
Dec. 21st, 2006 12:39 pmWith thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
oldnewthing, I present Questions The Explainer Never Answered.
A sampling:
There are some truly awesome questions in there. Also some truly certifiable people asking questions in the world.
oldnewthing, I present Questions The Explainer Never Answered.A sampling:
- What comes after 999 trillion?
- Why is grilled chicken tasting increasingly rubbery and odd?
- Hello ... Could you tell me if there's been any kind of medical discovery in the last 30 years besides DNA.
There are some truly awesome questions in there. Also some truly certifiable people asking questions in the world.
