Not even close

I found this in a study about women with breast cancer:

Someone was having problems with conversion.

Guess Who

Eerie

I feel think I've gone mad

Early rave reviews for the movie Inception. I feel like the rest of the world has collectively gone insane.

Inception Trailer 2 Transcript
Leonardo DiCaprio: There is one thing you should know about me: I specialize in a very specific type of security...subconscious security.
Cillian Murphy: You’re talking about dreams?

Michael Caine: Mr Karl has a job offer he’d like to discuss with you
Ellen Page: Like a work placement?
Leonardo DiCaprio: Not exactly. We create the world of the dream. We bring the subject into that dream and they fill it with their secrets
Ellen Page: Then you break in and steal it
Leonardo DiCaprio: Well, it is not strictly speaking legal. It’s called inception.

Leonardo DiCaprio: I’m ready. I think I found a way home. This last job is how I get there. Dreams feel real when we’re in them, it is only when we wake up that we realize that something is strange.

Title: Your mind

Leonardo DiCaprio: This is your responsibility. You are not prepared to

Title: is the scene of the crime

Unknown Dude: The dream is collapsing

Leonardo DiCaprio: I have it under control
Joseph Gordon-Levitt: I hate to see it out of control

Can't understand the dude: You mustn’t be afraid to jimmy the vegit* down


*I have no idea what he said

If Arrested Development was an action movie

For the world travellers in my life

Welcome back to Canada Bron & Ky:

Math programs giving me low self-esteem

In the program Mathematica, I'm learning how to make a scatter plot and then export it as a image file. This is the result of my first attempt:

Freaking out over snakes

Is it bad I find this hilarious? I'm not scared of snakes but I shouldn't judge since I actually did see how big this snake was.

Tricking myself to sleep

As it has been well documented on this blog, I do not sleep well. Starting when I was in high school, occasionally I would be wide awake at night and sleepy through out the day. This would happen to me about once every couple months until I moved to Calgary. The last couple months before I moved back to Regina, I could not fall asleep before 4:30 AM. I would force myself to stay awake all night and try to go to bed the following night. This would result in falling asleep for about an hour and then not getting tired again until 4:30 AM. After some research, I found success gradually getting back to a regular schedule by delaying sleep 2 hours each night.

For the last week, I've been having the same problems again. Essentially my body gets confused between day and night. I did not have the time or patience to gradually get my sleep schedule back to normal. With the attempt to be proactive to prevent this from happening again, I bought a light box and some melatonin. I took the melatonin at 10PM last night with the hope to get to sleep by 11PM. I've been so sleep deprived, I was in bed before 10:30. Amazingly, I slept until 3 AM and only woke because I was thirsty. I was able to sleep again from 4:30 to 6. At 6AM, I started using my light box for a half hour. Wow, did it ever help me to wake up. For the next little while, I'll have to be pretty strict with my sleep and waking time. Hopefully, all this will help.

Look out world

my wing(wo)man is back!

Wished I would have remembered 18 years ago

On Saturday, I was trying to figure out something I could kneel on while cleaning the shower floor. I (not so) suddenly remembered that I lent my volleyball knee pads to a girl in grade 8 and she never returned them. Why did I not remember this in 1992?

Simplification

For weeks, it has been bothering me how much stuff I have and have no place to put it. I'm partially frustrated because I have so few days where I feel good enough to do anything about it. The rest of the frustration comes from not knowing where to start. I know things could be much worse but I want everything I keep to have a place. I came across this article tonight that I think will be useful:

Deciding what to get rid of is hard, but it must be done.
Our teacher told us the story of a man she had helped on a big cleaning project. He was hanging on to things like a plastic bag from a bookstore in Paris that he felt reminded him of his college travels. The bag, he said, had a special place in his memory.
Fine, she said. Let's get a nice frame for it and hang it on the wall. The man looked at her like she was nuts. You don't frame and hang a plastic bag.
No? Well, let's take a picture of it, then frame that picture. Again, the man stared at her like she had lost it. It finally dawned on him that the bag wasn't the source of his memories, but merely a souvenir, and a junky one at that. Toss it, he said.
Our teacher recommended that we use this rule for each item that we hem and haw over:
1. Would you want to frame and display it?
• Yes = Keep.
• No = See step 2.
2. Would you want to take a picture of it?
• Yes = Take picture, get rid of item.
• No = Get rid of item.
If you can take a picture of something that you want to remember, but can't use, do so. Put it in an album with a label. But let it go if it's taking up too much space.

Are Our Children Learning Enough About Whales?

I was an adorable baby

Trouble from the start

I uploaded some old-timey family pictures to my Flickr account.

When A Shirt Is More Than Just A Shirt

Back in the day, my sister wore grandpa clothes. She would call it retro, I call it grandpa clothes. She even had a pair of pants that once belong to my deceased great-grandfather that Krissie referred to as Ommie* pants. Sorry, I'm getting a little off track here. Once at Value Village with Maryanne, I happened to see a Levi's work shirt at the end of the rack in the men's section. It was an extra-small men's, still had the tags on it, fit me perfectly and was only $5. Mary and the girl at the till were jealous of my awesome find.


Cutest sisters ever! and the famous shirt

At the time when I bought the shirt, I was really skinny due to my food allergies. Everything I ate made me sick so it was difficult to even maintain my weight let alone put on weight. Eventually I started feeling better and was able to gain weight. It was bittersweet when the work shirt was too small for me to wear: I was so thankful to be feeling well enough to put on weight but sad since this kind of shirt wasn't made anymore. From the original store tags, it was from the late 70s or early 80s when work shirts were supa tight. Since then I ever never found a button-up shirt that fits me so well.


Inspired by the article When A Coat Is More Than Just A Coat: How Certain Articles Of Clothing Take On A Special Meaning - Jezebel. I want to read your stories of your favourite article of clothing. Post the story (or the link to the story) in the comments. If you write a story on your own blog, I'd appreciate if you linked back to me!

* Great-grandfather's name was Omund. At least it wasn't Ommie gotch which another member of our family "inherited". Note to Krissie: Dodged that bullet, eh?

"Caution: Contents are Hot"

Sorry, embedding didn't work:
Jimmy and Ladysmith Snack Mambazo Sing About Their Love for Hot Pockets

Nike Football: "Write the Future"

Less than 3 weeks...

Mr T on procrastination

This one is going out to Ky who has her qualifying exams soon...

Error of her ways

By no means do I condone adultery but I do see the merit in this woman's lawsuit:

In documents filed in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, Ms. Nagy seeks $600,000 for alleged invasion of privacy and breach of contract...Ms. Nagy's bill was being sent in her name until her husband signed up for Rogers Internet and home phone. Those services, along with Ms. Nagy's cellphone, were bundled into one bill, and that new invoice was addressed to her husband, the suit alleges. The invoice mailed to her then-husband contained details of her outgoing cellphone calls, the suit, filed in January, 2009, says. Ms. Nagy's husband figured out from the phone bill that she was having an affair. He left her and the children in August, 2007.
Woman sues Rogers over cellphone bill, says it ruined her marriage - The Globe & Mail

Ms Nagy fully admits that she had an extra-marital affair that lead to the termination of her marriage. Rogers had no right to bundle her cell phone plan with the other Rogers services and change the billing name without her permission. It could have been a business phone and that needed to be in her name, Rogers just doesn't know these things. The fact is that despite what the customer did, Rogers did break privacy laws.
I actually had to deal with a similar situation years ago that I blogged about:

I spent most of today calling customers to let them know when they can upgrade their cell phone. From as much as I remember, this is a VERY revealing conversation I had today. The names and places have been changed to protect the innocent (and not so innocent).

Teacherlady: Hi, is [Bob] there?
Wife: No, he's at work. Can I take a message?
TL: [Company preamble] Can you let [Bob] know that the cell phone he purchased from us about two years ago is eligible for an upgrade [later this month]?
W: You must have the wrong [Bob], we don't have a cell phone.
TL: Is this the [Bob Smith**] residence?
W: Yes, what address do you have?
TL: [Cherrytree Lane]
W: That's our house. When was the phone purchased?
TL: Two years ago.
W: Hmmm, When was the last call made?
TL: Sorry, I don't have access to that information. Only if [Bob] called directly could he find that out. If there has been some sort of mistake, tell [Bob] to call us directly so we can get this fixed.
W: Umm, [long pause] well thank you for telling me. [long pause]
TL: Well, [awkward pause] thank you for your time and hope you have a good day.

A couple minutes later I was on the phone when a co-worker told me there was a very angry woman on the phone who would talk to no one but me. By the time he tried transferring the call, she had hung up.

I explained to my co-workers and supervisor what had happened. Then I told them what I wanted to say the customer if he called in mad. "Number one: It's not my fault that you two have trust issues. Number two: It is not my fault that you are dumb enough to use your house number as your customer contact number for your secret cell phone."

** The real name is actually uncommon so it was no mistaking that I had the right house.

Ain't that the truth

Janny gets no satisfaction: