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In the new place

Moved in yesterday. Finished moving in today. So far, it's ok, not particularly happy or unhappy. Pretty much hide out in the bedroom, just come out for the washroom and kitchen. Would be nice to have a non-bedroom area. There is one but it's totally empty, kindof a no-mans land. There are two other guys here. One guy can't seem to make a sentence that doesn't involve a swear or two. The other guy doesn't seem all there sometimes. Both tradespeople, young guys, coming for Alberta trades boom. But overall they're decent people. Things just might not be too social considering. So yeah, like I've said before, it's not the type of place I want, it's just the type of place that fits my circumstances.

Too much Yin

I'm an "Advocating Experiencer".
If it weren't for the "low attention to style", it probably would've just called me "queer".

Silly thought

One of the fundamental problems with Star Wars is the term "light sabre". It's a total misnomer, it's not a sabre! Sabres are slightly curved. Lightsabres are not. They should be just called "glow sticks" or something. A glow stick duel sounds much less hostile, doesn't it. Would have much less disturbance on the harmony of the universe.

But it would be pretty weird if light sabres were curved, wouldn't it? Especially if you took it to the extreme, like some sort of light-sabre impotence. Some jedi with his floppy light sabre, saying "This never happens to me, I swear!"

I can't believe it

I prepared this post, but left it in draft mode:

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Moved Out

I don't feel particularly excited about it, or really even that happy. Some of the time I've been so desperate to move out, partly because of all the cigarette smoke from my parents, partly because it feels kindof lame to be a 26 year old guy living with his parents. But then some of the time, i really don't feel too inclined to move out. It'll be more work, have less of the familiar things of home. A much smaller space. This place isn't too small, it has three bedrooms (= 2 other guys there already), a shared kitchen, bathroom, and big living room. But the living room's completely empty (a couch only), and most of my stuff will stay in my room, so I'll probably be spending almost all my time in my room. Overall the place suits my current situation well, cause it's really easy to move in (some furniture already there, already has phone, electric etc) and really easy to move out (again not much stuff to move, and just 2 weeks warning for the landlord, no minimum length of lease) but I really don't think I'd want to stay there for a long time. During my searching before, I got a better idea of what I'd like. This place isn't bad, but even though it's not particularly run down or dirty or whatever, it's still has that oldish-house-basement feel, maybe discoloured or patched walls, some rough edges, etc, you know what I mean.

Anyway, don't really plan on having a 'housewarming' cause it's not really my place, not particularly suitable for 'parties', and besides who'd actually come?

Oh btw this place is about 20 blocks south of where I currently am, fairly nice location but of course I didn't meet my original search criteria of being able to walk to work.

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Ok, so guess what. It didn't happen. Should I really be surprised? On friday I met with the landlord again and finalised arrangements, and told the guy I would move in Sunday. Well this afternoon I packed (almost) everything up and loaded it in the car, and gave the guy a call at 3 pm. No answer. So I left a message to call back. Ran an errand and tried again at 4, still no answer. Tried again at 5, still no answer. So on and so forth. At 8:30 I called for the last time, left a message that it's too late to start moving now, was bringing everything back in and unpacking clothes and bedding, maybe I'll move in next weekend.

So I don't know what the hell happened, but it's a major pain in the butt. Plus, I'm a bit worried cause I signed the agreement and gave a cheque and such, but he better not consider this weekend my start date. Oh well, we'll see what happens.

Fire Drill

Our building had a fire drill yesterday morning, it was great! First just sat around for a bit wondering if the noise was indeed a fire alarm, but then the macho fire alarm voice came on reporting that an emergency situation had been reported. So we all headed down the stairs (some wondering if we should even bother going), clearing out the 21 storey building. Actually just 20 storeys, cause there's no floor 13... ooooo scary 13. (hmm I wonder if China has no floor 4?) Anyways, milled about on the sidewalks across the street for a while, a big crowd, but not too big cause most people probably took the plus 15s out. Felt like we should have been carrying picket signs or something. (Anyone want to do that with me sometime, march around downtown with signs with no words on them!) After no emergency vehicles were showing up, we figured it was just a drill. They soon let us back in, but instead of waiting for tons of people to take the elevators, I headed for the stairs. A coworker joined me. We can't get out of the stairs at our floor (12), just the crossover floors 8 and 14. We get out at 8, and find there's a bunch more people from our office there too (but noone else)! They must have taken the other stairwell and ended up on that floor at the exact same time as us! It doesn't sound too special, but it felt really neat to me somehow that two independently moving intermap groups happened to rendez-vous on the 8th floor.

Memories

As I stand at the bus stop... so many memories just from being there... Jan walking by for some reason, I recognized her by her walk. Cora getting out of a car, she had just come from something at the hospital and it's easier to get a bus home from the university. Me having some time to kill, going to the swingy things and swinging a bit. A sign saying a bus route had been "deleted". Just a few momentary unbidden flashes of the past, each inspiring floods of additional memories. Crazy brain.

Had a weird experience of interaction of the unconcious and concious the other day, but I'm not going to post it here, you can ask me in person if you want.

Productive Day

Firstly, got some useful work done, which is always good. But the best part was that my lunchtime comments have planted a seed that should become a soda cracker (Saltine, Premium Plus) eating contest to coincide with the end of month company lunch! It's feasible cause it's not something gross like living crawly things, or dangerous like shots of tobasco or eating 50 hot dogs. It's just plain difficult.

Anyways, I looked to see if there's a record, and while I couldn't find one, I did come across the Guinness World Records website. The most amusing category is the Unusual Skills category. It's got tons of rediculous stuff to make you laugh, but I've compiled my favorite three here (it was a hard choice for #3!). One had me crying I was laughing so hard! (these are the titles direct ftom the website)

3) MOST BEES IN MOUTH

2) FASTEST COAL SHOVELLING BY A MALE USING A BANJO

1) MOST KICKS TO THE HEAD IN ONE MINUTE (SELF)

Magic Ring

So I was thinking of how I was chatting to this girl last week, and she pointed out that we both have the engineering ring. I don't think I said anything interesting in response, but tonight as I the event passed through my mind I made some joke about "Yes, our Magic Rings! Oooooo...." Immediately, some memories popped into my head. Scrubs, where JD and Turk had a box of serial which contained TWO magic decoder rings! Simpsons, where marge tells homer "but only two of us have special rings" and bart and lisa say "yeah!" and blow on their whistle rings and marge says "I meant our wedding rings!" Those memories were perfectly normal, nothing unexpected. But then my mind said:
"Magic Ring,
round and round,
take me flying off the ground,
to a place,
where we can find,
the answers to our hearts deeesire."

What the heck was that?! "me" might have been "us", and "desire" might be wrong, but it was definitely a solid memory. I thought a bit longer, and decided it was a TV show theme from childhood. I then began to picture some girl (live action, not cartoon), with her friends gathered round, and they waved their hands above her magic ring and chanted those words and then teleported to some magic world or something.

Anyways, the thing that strikes me most about this is not even so much that a memory from ancient times suddenly jumped into my head. That sort of thing happens enough to just accept it. I bet even if someone asked me directly "have you ever seen a tv show called 'magic ring' when you were young?" I'd have said "no." The weirdest thing right now is the fact that I've thought of "magic ring" dozens perhaps hundreds of times in the past several years, but not once has the memory of this tv show come into my head.

Crazy incredible brain!

Yay, tax time!

All the T4s and such are in! I don't know if I'm some kind of a perv, but actually kindof like doing taxes at this time of year. Filling in the little boxes, going here and there to other forms to find the numbers, it's like "choose your own adventure" or something! Anyways, this year I'm getting $250 back, and carrying forward a bunch of Tuition and RRSP (of course, that just means I didn't earn much this year). Feels much better than last year's kick in the crotch of having to write a $3300 cheque to the government.

Car: why?

I was just thinking recently if it's really worth having a car sometimes. eg, I'm paying about $100/month for insurance, regardless of how much I drive. But how often do I use the car? I think I took it to the temple a couple times, but usually I just do the 10 min walk, that's an easy substitution so I won't count it. Otherwise, about 3 weeks ago I drove it... to the car wash and gas station. And prior to that, it had sure been a while. So I used it once in a month, for a trip that wouldn't have been necessary without the car in the first place.

I think the real problem is that I need to get out more. Solve that, and this issue will go away. Can't wait till the summer...

Been thinking whether I should keep it if I go to Japan... it's cool (fob friends always like the red seats) and would be nice to still have when I return, but it seems a waste to have sitting around for a year, and what happens if I stay away for another year or something?