Just 6 more sleeps...

The Colbert Report premieres on CTV after The Daily Show. Also the new season of The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos begins the same day on CBC News World. It will be an exciting day in news watching.

Rantings of an Occasional Insomniac

I found out this weekend that I am allergic to the adhesive in band-aids. I have to get a special kind of band-aid now but the problem is they don't stick so great.

I was watching Discovery Health last night and learned some interesting facts about PMS. First, a hug from the man you love will help your PMS symptoms more than any pain killers (including morphine). Allergies are worse during PMS.

I also was watching the National Spelling Bee finals from 1998 on Book TV. It was the last couple rounds and there were only about a dozen kids left so the words were pretty hard. There was only one word I knew how to spell or had even heard before (which was paraclete). I also learned that the letter "h" is spelled aitch. I am so using that in Scrabble.

I did not get enough sleep this weekend. Too much movie watching with Lynnie C, Ky, Just a Girl and the Sleeping Princess. Warning to all you princely suitors: the sleeping princess snores. But I digress...
Last night it was a movie watching extravaganza. First we watched This is Spinal Tap then we watched the perennial favourite, Newsies. As could be imagined, there was some serious silliness with a dash of witty banter. I cannot get High Times, Hard Times out of my head.

I have been tutor a lot lately. In the course of a week I have had 9 tutoring sessions. It should be fairly busy until the middle of December.

A Quick Review of Batman Begins

I had a sleepover last night with Lynnie C and Ky. I guess technically Gina was there to but she was sleeping most of the time. We watched Batman Begins. My quick review of the movie:
* not enough shirtless push ups
* Katie Holmes is a twit. How dare you break Dawson's heart!
* Nice to see Morgan Freeman reprising his role as God in Bruce Almighty 2: Batman Begins, although this sequel was much more somber than the original.

DON'T READ THIS PART IF YOU STILL WANT TO SEE THE MOVIE!
* there is this weapon that is basically is a giant microwave. This microwave evaporates water hundreds of feet away but the people standing right beside it are not effected. What? The human body is composed of 55-60% water. People would become jerky. Which reminds me you have to check out The Daily Show's story about Hufu (click on Flesh in a Pan).

Vandermeander

Anyone who remembers my distant cousin Dixie from U of R choir (female tenor), I discovered Dixie's blog today.

Good news and bad news

The good news is that I had a calling for subbing this morning. It was only for the morning which is better than nothing. I was glad it was for the morning only because it took forever for me to get to sleep last night. I get to the school and they only need me for one period! One hour of work for half a day of pay!

During my internship I lived with Bill and Chris, a couple who were retired teachers. The bad news is that Bill passed away expectantly. I will have to send a card to Chris.

Does that mean he has to stand behind Shakespeare?

Found on Eonline today at 12:50 pm (CST):

No mood for being witty

This morning I got a subbing call from the dispatch system. In the middle of the call, the system hung up on me. Then it just went onto the next person on the list. So I did not get the job placement. There is nothing I can do about it since there was no teacher specifically requested. It happened to me one time before but I was the requested teacher so the problem was able to be fixed.

I was feeling so discouraged last night at work. I just don't know what to do with my life.

Might be a little late...

I think I am suffering from a Quarter Life Crisis. I'm going through what many of my friends went through right after university. They have told me they are glad that I don't know what to do about my life. Seems like a strange thing to be glad about.

Laziness Abounds

The other shelf straightener at work is lazy. He better be getting yelled at on a regular basis by the inventory lady. Tuesday night shift is always the longest and I found out why tonight: the only shelf straightener only works for an hour. An hour? The fastest I have ever finished is in 2 hours (only because a section of the store was already done when I got there). It is not physically possible to clean that store in an hour and he leaves the proof behind every night he works.

Calling all word geeks

Fabulous Girl posted the responses to the Mensa Lexicon Challenge from the Washingston Post. The challenge is to "take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition."

Let's see if we can all come up with some more. We'll show those Mensa folk what clever really is.

Grrrrrrrrrr

I am beyond annoyed. People can be so inconsiderate. I was supposed to tutor 3 times today. This first session was two people at the same time. I got a call 15 minutes after it was supposed have begun that they would not be able to make it. For the second session the person did not show up at all (and could not be reached at home). So instead of 3 times, I tutored once today.

T-Shirt Transfer

I made a new t-shirt transfer. Hopefully I will be able to finish more soon.

T-shirt Preview


T-shirt transfer




Maryanne, Ky and what ever other British/Canadian spelling enthusiasts out there: I was trying to make the shirt universal. If you really want a shirt that has "favourite" instead, just ask.

The Chronicles of Janny

Something strange happened at work last night. There is this back room that at work we refer to as Narnia. It is mostly a storage room for displays and props but the safe is also in there. Last night I was working near the entrance of Narnia (does that mean I was working outside the wardrobe?) when one of the security guards went inside. This is not unusual but he left and then came back again this time leaving the door open (very unusual). He was in there for a long time (another unusual thing). I peaked in and he was just sitting there, in the middle of the room. This made me very curious and I kept on checking to see what he was doing. He appeared to be doing nothing at all. When I left the section about 20 minutes later he was still in there.

I made the mistake of making myself a London Fog before bed. I guess warm milk does not put you to sleep if it flavoured with caffeinated tea and sugar. (I didn't think it would, I was just craving one and it usually does not effect me).

While I was wide awake I thought I would catch up on some TV shows I had taped. I don't usually tape Survivor or the Apprentice but I was curious about what was going to happen after I saw a preview. I was so glad I did , Jon Favreau was promoting Zathura. The teams had a marketing project where they had to make a float for the movie. I adore Favs so I'm glad I didn't miss it . (Note to sister: Remember Monday Night Football style commentary?)

It is so exciting. I finished my work faster tonight than ever before. I finished in under 2 hours (and still get paid for 3). My previous record was 2 hours and 15 minutes. It helped that the store was in such good order already. Yesterday it was a mess so the first order today was for the booksellers to re-organize their sections.

In completely unrelated news, I have a strangely high pain threshold. Either that or I fall asleep easily. I got my legs waxes today and that is what the esthetician said. I was falling asleep while she was waxing my legs and I wasn't even super tired. It doesn't surprise me, I have fallen asleep standing up and another time walking to school. (My friend woke me up before I almost ran into a cyclist). The strangest place I fell asleep was head first into a suitcase while I was packing and slept there for 2 hours. I fell asleep only twice doing homework -- once it was when I had the chicken pox and I was colouring some ladybugs. The other time was when I had to read the Communist Manifesto for a university history class. This is the only time I have ever fallen asleep reading. The former because of pure exhaustion and the latter because of pure boredom.

Random Bits

I got disoriented last night on my way to tutoring. I parked my car, went out the wrong door and ended up walking for 20 minutes. No regrets. If I had not gotten lost I would not have seen a group re-enacting Thriller.

Last night at work I was wondering why is Raggedy Ann raggedy and Andy is not? They look equally raggedy to me.

I subbed at Dalmeny again yesterday. I'm back again Thursday. So far it has been the school that I have been to the most this past year. It is really strange since it has been nearly 2 weeks since I have had a call from the city school division. I usually have a minimum of couple calls a week. I might need to make a call to make sure the dispatch system is not skipping me.

I forgot to update about my roommate's computer. They told me they would call me before they did any work that was not covered under warranty. After a week I had not heard from them at all. I was convinced they couldn't fix the problem or blah, blah, blah. I was paranoid that it was going to cost lots.
I was in the area of the repair place so I decided to check up on the progress. It had been ready to be picked up for more than a week. No one called me to tell me so. The descriptions I had given them about the problems were very helpful. They immediately knew what to do. The motherboard needed to be replaced. It just so happened to go kaput while I was working on the computer. Since it was a hardware problem it was covered by warranty. What sweet relief!

Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Hollywood Franchise - SHARON WAXMAN, NY Times ONline

The producers Howard Deutsch and Ridley Scott have set in motion what they hope will be a lively auction of the movie rights to "Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective."

Happy Birthday 15th IMDB!

IMDB 15th Anniversary

I made my mom's kitchen table muddy. How, you ask? Gave my dad several cacti in one big pot. Some of them are recently dearly departed from root rot. Today we bought some replacements and this evening we planted them. We so happened to be doing our work on the kitchen table. Wow, my mom was not pleased. Of course, my mom never really gets upset. She just stood there staring at the mess with her eyebrows raised. She told me to clean up the mess then walked away.

I think a nap is in order.

I was doing yard work in my parents' backyard. I cut back the raspberry bushes and got rid of some unwanted baby elm trees. I need a chainsaw to do anymore work. There is more work I could do in the front yard but it is too windy. I have been taking a break, hoping the wind dies down but now I'm sleepy.