Canadian Celebrities

Is it just me, or do Canadians pick the weirdest celebrities to worship? When it comes to movie stars, we worship the Jim Carreys and Mike Myers' - Canadian celebrities who got their big breaks after moving to the States. And then there are the political celebrities. The Ben Mulroneys and, most recently, the Justin Trudeaus.

Pierre Trudeau's son got married on the weekend, surrounded by throngs of media and well-wishers - including many people that weren't even alive during Trudeau's mandate as Prime Minister, thus not passing his reflected glow onto his son.

Now, don't get me wrong, I guess being impressed by the kids of former Prime Ministers is better than fawning over the circular fame of Paris Hilton, but come on! Mulroney I can understand, he's so completely overexposed himself, it's impossible not to have him seep into your consciousness. Trudeau, however, guards his private life and does not want to grow up to be his father (a fact which people seem to ignore, since now all of a sudden he's projected to be living at 24 Sussex Drive in the near future).

A Camera Crisis Crossroads

Oh alliteration, how I love this. If anyone has used either of these cameras, or has any helpful insights, it would be much appreciated.

More Op-Ed Wackiness

This one is actually a few weeks old, but after driving to work over the last week and having suffered several bouts of road rage (I passed someone on the right yesterday. I was doing 105), I felt it needed to be posted.

I was reading the letters in The Star about three weeks ago, and came across one from a woman (an old woman I assume, partly because her name was Iris, but also because of the content of the letter). She was responding to a previous letter complaining about tractor trailers driving in the middle lane, thus slowing down traffic. Iris' letter...well, let me give you just one line: "If they drive so slowly, why is it that when I get on the QEW and am driving at speed, there is always a tractor trailer bearing down on me."

Hmmm...why would that be? Could it be because you're driving on a major arterial expressway at speed? Iris, do you ever drive on the 400? I think I might have been behind you sometime this week. I hope you weren't looking in your rearview mirror.

And God said, "LET THERE BE LIGHT..."

...but he sneezed, so it came out as, "Let there be GRSNUXX!"

As a result, all the lights in Georgian College went out, and I got to go home early.

Another (too short) weekend with Carley

Carley was home for the weekend again, partly because it was a long weekend, but also because it was her grandma's 80th birthday party on Sunday. Once again, the weekend went by far too quickly, but for the first time in more than a month, I had the weekend off, so I was basically able to spend every waking hour with her - save for showers, and the three episodes of Scrubs I watched on Saturday night and Sunday morning.

Sidetrack

On the subject of Scrubs, in a little over five days, I watched 24 episodes of what is perhaps the funniest show on television. I've only really started watching it this past season, on Carley's advice, and it is an absolute gem. It's just a shame no one cares about it, except every spring when every television critic does a story on the "Great Shows You Don't Give A Rat's Ass About". Hell, it's ranked like 15 spots higher than That 70s Show, but what do we see a story about every week? Topher Grace and Ashton Kutcher leaving the show because they've deluded themselves into thinking they have successful movie careers.

Sidetrack

But, back to Carley! Saturday was spent attempting to find a digital camera, to no avail. Futureshop had by far the best selection, but nothing was really leaping out at us, so she decided to wait until she's back in Ottawa.

On Sunday, we went to Barrie (gee, Barrie, I don't spend much time there) for Carley's grandma's birthday party. It was like any birthday party get together - all the family you don't see and don't keep up with trying awkwardly to catch up with you. So, Carley, Andrew, and I headed down to Bayfield St. for the Waterfront Festival. There really is nothing like a street festival on a nice warm day. The music was pretty good and the buskers weren't bad (we single-handedly started a crowd for one guy), but it's just kind of a unique experience - even if it was in Barrie, where the most common sale items involved NASCAR.

We got back to the party just in time for dinner which, while good, was far too much, even for the 30 or so people who were there. The 'do was catered, for reasons unknown to all of us, as they didn't exactly go to any extraordinary lengths. I mean, there were beans, carrots, mashed potatoes, and roast beef. That's a Sunday night meal at a lot of houses, and it sure as hell doesn't cost $15 a plate (we didn't have to pay, that's just what it worked out to be once all was said and done). It was nice, and I like Carley's family and all, but luckily we took two cars, so we were able to leave early to catch...

Star Wars!

I won't go into a lot of detail right here, as I imagine I will probably see it again, at which point I'll nitpick, but let's just say I liked it a lot, it tied things up nicely, but George, please....please....hire someone to write your dialogue. While many people think Padme's "Hold me like you did on Naboo" line is the worst in movie history, Vader's "NOOOOOOOOO!" at the end might as well have been performed by Charlton Heston. "You damn dirty Sith! Damn you all to hell!"

But that was pretty much our weekend. We got together for a couple of hours this morning before I had to go to work for the deadest shift ever, where we would have watched The Aviator had Andy not been a weenie and gave Mike his copy, so we watched the Cosby Show and then I made the annoyingly slow drive to work.

It was a very good weekend, and the last one Carley and I will spend together for a depressingly long and indeterminate time. Everything lined up perfectly - Carley, no more EB, long weekend, Star Wars. Is there a better equation?

As I haven't exactly been overly diligent lately in updating this, I suppose I had better take this opportunity before bed to relate the last week of my oh so exciting life.

Today was my second last shift at EB. I think they've replaced me with Nancy, but apparently Ashley's leaving at the end of June and Frank said he was hiring two people...so...well, I guess Nancy won't mind having five shifts a week until Frank gets around to hiring someone else...

My last shift is on Friday, my official last day according to my letter of resignation - just like at Blockbuster, where on my official last day I worked an inventory (that was supposed to be a closeventory). On the very plus side, Carley will be home when I get off work for the long weekend - the first weekend in a month that I won't be working - so that will make for an excellent few days.

As for Georgian, aside from the God awful sleep deprivation that comes from having to be in Barrie for 5:45 AM half the time, the job is excellent. It would be worth it if all I got was the free gym membership, but the job will easily pay for another semester of school, and about half of my car - the rest of which should be paid off after another semester at the gym.

On one final note, I have discovered something Blockbuster has over EB (at the moment) - trading in games. A comparison:

Blockbuster - I bought three games from EB for the combined total of $29. I traded them in at Blockbuster for a total of $72 - which has bought me Hotel Rwanda and the first season of Scrubs.

EB - You could buy pre-owned copies of XIII, Crimson Skies and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for as little as $95.19. If you were to trade those in immediately after buying them, you would get $12.

While my leaving EB will not result in a plethora of anti-EB posts (as my leaving Blockbuster did), I really couldn't pass up pointing out that particular discrepancy. Make no mistake, EB is nowhere near the soul reaving company that Blockbuster is, but I have a funny feeling they want to be.

Alright, I think that's got everything caught up. I've been able to survive this long without Carley, but let's just say I'm glad she's coming home this weekend.

Hello, old friend!

For the first time in a week-and-a-half or so, I slept more than six hours in a night. I haven't been able to sleep in since the Tuesday before last, and, although I still haven't had a day off since the Jimmy Eat World concert on April 12th, the promise of sleep made this an even better weekend.

The weekend started out with Carley coming home as her job will not be starting for a couple of more days, so we were able to spend much of the weekend together. I called in sick (of working, that is! Har!) Friday to EB, marking the first time in three weeks that I haven't worked eight shifts a week between EB and Georgian. Of course, I won't actually get a day off until I'm done at EB, but I guess I'll last until then.

Having to say goodbye to Carley again as she headed back to Ottawa was not exactly the best way to finish off a weekend, but at least it meant seeing her for a few more days.

So, thanks to sleep and Carley, this was actually quite an excellent weekend.

My only fear regarding Family Guy's return to television would be that it would become nothing more than a parody of itself - no new, fresh ideas, but rather a smattering of ideas and gags from the original run of the series.

In tonight's episode (which wasn't bad):

Tom Tucker's upside-down face son
Greased up deaf guy
Chris' weird pedophile guy from his paper route

Off to Ottawa

I saw Carley off before she made the trek to Ottawa today, to start her summer co-op with Transport Canada. We had an early (earrrrrrly) breakfast at the Nifty Nook before she left on her nice five-and-a-half hour drive up Ontario's east side.

I had to work (not like that's any surprise), so I couldn't go with her and help her unpack and get settled, which I very much would have liked to have done, but naively thought Frank would actually honour my request to just work Sundays...

But, it won't be too long before I get to see her again, as she'll be coming home for the Victoria Day long weekend, if I can hold out that long. I'll probably be reduced to quite the mess before then, so we'll have to see how all that goes.

I'm going to miss her terribly, much more than she thinks, but we survived eight months in Peterborough, so I think we can definitely do four months in Ottawa. We're tough. Grr.