Saturday Night

"So jeans are made out of cotton, huh?"

"Yep."

"I never knew that. I always thought they were made of metal."

"...what?"

"Yeah, I thought, because they're so heavy and they get really cold in the wind..."

"You know you shouldn't tell me these things, right? You know I'm going to make fun of you forever about this."

"Let me finish! I didn't think they were ENTIRELY metal, just that they had some metal threads inserted into the fabric."

"You thought everyone was walking around in metal pants? 'Hey, let me just put on my chainmail pants and we'll be good to go!'"

"Hey, what are you doing with that computer?"

"I'm posting this on the internet."

"No, I blackball it. I should have FIVE blackballs... a year. This is one of them."

"You can't blackball me, I have freedom of expression. Anyways, when people read this, they're going to assume the person saying something stupid is me and not you."

"Fine, but I get to proofread."

...

"Okay I'm done."

"... what made you think this would be an acceptable format?"


(Editor's Note: Some quotes may have been removed from context and therefore be inaccurate.
ALSO, TM has not worn jeans since he started playing road hockey when he was a little kid. Jeans are completely impractical for road hockey because they're very uncomfortable.
ALSO, he hasn't really thought about the make up of jeans that much, it was more of a background assumption.)

Where we live

I never get tired of doing this.

In the last week, this site has had visits from the following places:

Vancouver
Toronto
Ottawa
Guelph
Owen Sound
Kingston
Mississauga
Salt Lake City
San Diego
Singapore

heh heh heh

SO!
Since I know where you live, it seems only fair that you should know where we live.
As such - pictures of the place, finally and completely furnished are on my flickr!

There will of course be some changes made, since you'll notice the walls are pretty much still great big blanks. But for furniture we have vowed we are done. I am not walking through another furniture store for an entire weekend EVER AGAIN.

This weekend we are going to a giant HOMESENSE. Which is entirely different.

Reading my new library book

If you plan to use all text as your logo, be very conscious of your type choice (duh). As a general rule, don't use any font that is built into your computer. Buy a new one.

Be especially wary of Helvetica (Arial is also Helvetica, it's just called another name). Helvetica was the most popular typeface in the world in the 1960s and '70s, so anything you create with it automatically has a '60s/'70s look. Do you want the same visual identity as thousands of other companies and organizations who still have their Helvitica logos held over from the '70s?

While we're on the font soapbox, please avoid Sand, Mistral, and Hobo for the next fifty years.

__

Amen, brother.

Taken from: Robin Williams Design Workshop 2nd Edition, by Robin Williams and John Tollett

The Miraculous Occurence of a Testistical Impossibility

(phonetic transcription of my speech for your enjoyment, not for accuracy)


"Hey! I wore a white shirt. For a whole day --"

"-- without spilling anything!"

"Yeah!"

"Holy crap!"

"I know!"

"You should maybe mark your calendar."

"Shut up."

"Haha. Pow!"

Contemplating...

I've been thinking about something for a while. Thinking that I'm tired of this template, and this blogging system, thinking that it was me once, but now it's not. That maybe I've outgrown it. That I could have given it a structure and a purpose that I've been lazy about because maybe blogger does it for me. And all I've bothered to do is add a picture, and some links on the side. Mostly, I'm thinking that I'm not doing it justice any more, and maybe I need to set the bar a bit higher for myself.

Yes, and right now you're saying: Soooo... what?

Well, here's the thing. This may be a long time in coming, it may involve some cash flow, and some courses, but I think that M&C will be moving.

I'll let you know.

A-ha.

AWESOME.

Rolling Stone handy-cammed worst lyrics ever. But what really does it for me isn't the attitude, or the ability to get through more than 2 lines without cracking a smile, it's the accent. "A-ha."

*Warning*: explicit lyrics.

Oh Canada... my home and native land can be such a pain in the ***

I'm going to talk about something here, which I have avoided talking about for a couple of reasons:

1. Everyone else is talking about it already, and if there's anything I'm not -- it's a joiner.
2. It has the ability to reduce me to a pile of quivering fists, guttural exclamations and sometimes tears of pure frustration.

I'm going to talk about the Passport Office.
More specifically, I'm going to talk about the currently EXCRUCIATING process of wrenching a new passport from their tightly clenched, constipated... I think you know where I'm going with this -- There was this time, once, where my cat ate a piece of tinsel, and it didn't quite make it through the other end -- well anyway, now you've got a picture to go along with it.

In my short life, I have come up against the Canadian government more times than seems really fair, considering I am a law-abiding citizen with an impeccable and morally righteous track record. I'm not a drinker, a smoker, I don't do drugs, or overeat -- I don't weigh heavily on the health system, or any other system for that matter. I pay my bills, I brush my teeth, and I have been known to be ferociously patriotic.

And yet. Many of you will remember the time a few years ago when I was AUDITED. Suddenly I was paying rent! Paying rent? A 21 year old going to university is paying RENT? Better expend taxpayers' money investigating that one...

Earlier this year, I filled out an application for a new passport. As I don't know anyone in Vancouver -- or at least no one who has known me for longer than 2 years. I had to send it home to Ontario to get it signed. My dad then sent it off to the passport office by registered mail so that he could confirm that it was received -- which it was, on February 1st. I finally received it last Friday -- the 4th of May.
Yes, you're right, that IS a ridiculous length of time.
But you know? I wouldn't have even really worried about it except that in between sending the application and receiving my passport I got a job -- a job that requires I sign up for the provincial healthcare and the extended health benefits of my employer -- a process that REQUIRES either my PASSPORT or my BIRTH CERTIFICATE, which were both, until Friday, being held hostage by the Passport Office.

The reason I have decided to recount this is because today in the Vancouver Sun I read this editorial about a pleasant passport experience. This made me think that a) this guy really is insane, b) maybe the reason I have such a hard time with anything governmental is because I'm me. Can I really be this unlucky? Or have I been added to some blacklist? Is this the reason no one will give me a credit card?

Clearly my paranoia is alive and thriving. But wait, there's more. Passport Canada currently has a promised 10 week turnover for passports because of its giant influx of applications. Okay fine, I get it, at least they've warned people, and what else am I going to do? HOWEVER -- for those of you who aren't up on your Sesame Street lately, let me just break that down for you: February 1st was a Thursday. May 4th was a Friday. Which brings us to the grand total of 14 weeks and 1 day. Also, since some ditsy girl called me on a Sunday late in April ("Hello Ms. H, we have your passport application here" --- "Um... bravo?"), I KNOW they are working weekends.

Then -- THEN! -- when the passport finally arrives, I eagerly rip open the envelope and take out my passport, shiny and new. I then shake the envelope but nothing else emerges. Where are my other documents you ask? The originals of my last passport and my BIRTH CERTIFICATE?? "Oh, those? Those are being sent separately. Unless it came from the Hull office. If it didn't come from the Hull office you're SOL. We trust this information has been useful to you."

TRUST NOTHING.

It seems to me that, apart from MYSELF, the common denominator here is that question -- that never-ending, vicious cycle of a question that governmental bureaucracy can never even begin to answer: "But, why?" Amazing how these government procedures have the ability to reduce us to the behaviour of two-year-olds -- that we must constantly demand explanations, and point out how ludicrous their operations are. "But... WHY?"

The Canadian government, ladies and gentlemen, the number one national source of forehead smacking.

(And I'm still waiting on the return of my documents.)

Finally getting a taste of Summer

After a very dreary weekend here in Vancity, the weather has finally decided to smarten up and act its season. For the first time in weeks I haven't had to turn on the space heater that hides under my desk to ineffectually keep one side of my left thigh warm while the rest of my body freezes in this lofty ice box they've dubbed "office building" here at BCLA. (Why then did I even bother with the heater you ask? Well, my hope was that the limited contact area would at least warm up the blood that was circulating past that part of my leg and carry some of the heat to the rest of me. Two months of testing this hypothesis however has proven my limited understanding of the human circulatory system, and my gross overestimation of my own body's ability to actually circulate ANYTHING.)
I know the weather usually isn't a great topic of conversation (traditionally, it's brought up when someone has, ahem, nothing else to talk about), but it's so central to life here in BC that it occupies a good portion of my daily interactions (this fact could not, of course, possibly mean that the people I interact with on a daily basis can't think of anything else to say to me ... I am not as unfathomable as all that ... am I?). Since the weather here is so consistently different and surprising to the "folks back home", weather also makes up a great proportion of my correspondence (among other vastly entertaining topics!). Last week, my mother was bemoaning sunburnt feet from wearing her sandals out in the sun, and my brother left me on MSN to go out on the deck and "sun himself." Meanwhile, I was still wearing gloves to work each day.
In the middle of March, while Ontario was still in the grip of winter, I was sending out pictures of the blossoming cherry trees that line both sides of our street, with reassurances that spring was indeed on the way.
Now, British Columbians on one side are assuring me that it is unseasonably cold, while on the other, Ontarians are warning me not to expect anything like Ontario's heavy summer heat. Who to believe? Although I'd like to think the BCns have their own province figured out, the minor shift in temperatures from ~12 C, to ~16 has them all sporting flip-flops and shorts.
Either way, the sun this week is a welcome reprieve. Whether or not it's still on the cool side, one thing that's certain is that the dramatic shifts from long periods of rain into sun definitely affects moods out here. For the grace of two sunny days, Vancouver is already a happier, shinier place this week. For this reason alone I hope it continues.

Pop culture has very little meaning in our house

From: AH
Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007 1:32 PM
To: TM
Subject:

I would just like to let you know, that I am eating a frosty from Wendy's which I have just obtained for free. And it is delicious.


From: TM
Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007 1:35 PM
To: AH
Subject: RE:

Awwww… I don’t even know what that is but by the sounds of things I gather it is some sort of frozen dessert, which is really my preferred kind of dessert.

I would just like to let you know that I am jealous.