Walking in a Winter Wonderland OR How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Became a Hermit Crab

WARNING: Before reading this, you should be made aware that the latter part contains what could be construed as angsty whining à la Thirteen. This is not my intention, but it could be easily misinterpreted based on the angsty contents of a vast majority of weblogs. You have been warned.

When I began writing this, I had planned to write an extensive recap of how I (probably) wrote off my car. Then I wrote the WARNING thing, and now I don't want to anymore. I mean, really, I've revisited the episode several times, and I'm kinda getting tired of it. Carley gives a fairly good account on her site, so I would suggest you go there.

I will say one thing, though. Fortunately (for me, probably not for her) Carley was with me at the time of the great unpleasantness. Had she not been, I probably would have, once removed from my car, wandered into opposing traffic, causing a rather gooey mess.

And, with that as an angsty prelude, we begin the whining!

I have been told by a couple of people that I'm never going to meet people if I don't put myself "out there". To which, I must say, I agree entirely. The only problem, of course, is that I don't care! Hurrah for apathy!

I have found that, when "out there", one of two things happens to me:

1. I usually get lost, fall down wells, become prey for salivating wolves and witches, and generally get into all sorts of mediaeval escapades.
2. I look like an ass trying to avoid these escapades.

As such, I've decided I won't be venturing "out there" for a while. I don't feel like meeting new people, since I seldom see the people I already care about, due to myriad scheduling conflicts. Why, then, get entangled with others with whom I would probably face the same problems? Sitting at home with nothing to do with 100 people who are busy is about as satisfying as with two people.

On a closing note, let this not be construed as me saying I never want to go out. I do want to go out, very much. That's the problem!! I am just having trouble reconciling with a) being stood up and b) having everyone assume I'm not having a good time.

Just being out is a good time for me - I'm not that captivating, hence, I am easily captivated. Unfortunately, most people seem to assume something will either not be to my liking, or that I wouldn't be comfortable being around people I don't know.

And that rambling mess, I think, fills my angst quota for the year.

Updatification

I'm not normally one for random updates about my life - despite this being, you know, my blog - but I haven't updated this puppy in a few days, so why not?

School is nearly, neeeeeeearly over. There's about three weeks (and three assignments and four tests) left, and then, to Christmas Break! An aborted Christmas Break, I'm sure, because I'll still be working at the gym and I actually, brace yourself, show up for my shifts. As such, I'm sure I'll be working.

In other news:

• I am staying at the gym for my co-op next semester. That's right! I'm living life on the edge!
• Group work sucks
• Working the hardest in practice will not earn you a spot in the starting lineup for a varsity basketball team. That goes to the guy that doesn't show up. Hard work does not pay off. That's a lesson, kids!
• Chuck Norris is badass
• Group work sssssuuuuuccccccckkkkkks

Thank you. We now return you to your regularly scheduled program.

I smell like cookies!

Specifically:



Have I had any maple leaf cookies today? No sir, I have not.

I think I get it now

Carley and I have started watching the first season of Lost over the last couple of weeks. We both half-expected it to be kinda stupid, and while it's lived up to our expectations for the most part, we can't turn away (well, I can't turn away, I don't know if Carley's quite as interested as I am, she does tend to be slightly more rational than I am in her choices of entertainment).

Despite the problems* with the show, I actually want to continue watching it. It hasn't quite gripped me the way previous shows on DVD have (Sports Night, Scrubs, House) wherein I can easily stay up until six o'clock in the morning watching an entire season, but I do find myself rather enthralled.

So, I guess I can understand its popularity.

* - Oh, you don't think there are problems with the show? Allow me to illustrate:

• The engine remained operational an awful long time after it came apart from the plane
• You don't get sucked into a jet engine from 15 feet away
• Many of the survivors are apparently useless, seeing as there's nearly 50 of them, but we only see about a dozen
• Thank God there's a doctor, an electrical engineer, and a hunter among this random selection of people. All they need is a shipwright or a pilot, and they'll be outta there!
• Where, on a flight from Australia, are the Australians?
• Locke can freaking walk
• How are there any trees left if "the monster" bashes them down everywhere he walks?
• And, for that matter, what has he been munching on these last 16 years? So far we've seen a few pigs and a polar bear
• Oh yeah. There's polar bears!
• As of yet, no one has constructed a single thing out of a coconut

And, despite the many faults in the first four episodes (yes, I'm sure some of these will be rectified in the coming episodes), I can not seem to turn away.

If you aren't already doing it...

...help get Tom Cheek into the Baseball Hall of Fame!

Oooh! Oooh! Can I tell him?

I found this story by way of a link incorporated into one of my MSN contacts' names. For the sake of clarity, the link was not intended as irony; the guy's a rabid conservative. Rabid. Get your shots, rabid. He's a good guy (or I assume he still is, we haven't talked since high school), don't get me wrong. He's just rabid.

Anyway, without further adieu, here is the link he provided: Wizbang - Explosively Unique.

For those who don't feel like operating their mice, here's the gist of the post. It refers to a book by Richard Miniter called Disinformation: The 22 Media Myths That Undermine the War on Terror (he's written another book called Shadow War: The Untold Story of How Bush Is Winning the War on Terror, so you can probably see where this is going).

The book would appear to talk about how the Americans and the various other backers of the war have actually found reams of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, all just waiting to be put into action and cause mass chaos. That's right, Saddam had WMDs, thus the war is justified. Plus he's in league with Al Qaeda (I assume that leap of faith is made), thus the war is justified-er.

So, thank you Alex, I needed a good laugh.

Ahem...AAAAAAAAH!

Yeah, you heard me. And most of the people around me in the library heard me too (I forgot to use my inside voice).

There are basically three-and-a-half to four weeks left in school. And about eight weeks worth of assignments and tests to do. Now, I know I'm not a physicist, but the concept of the space-time continuum is not entirely lost on me. As the semester bobbed along into November, I realized that in all my classe, we'd done, maybe, a third of our work for the year. So...eight weeks out of a 14-week semester, and we've done less than half the work.

Don't believe me? I have five classes (well, six, but in that one we watch movies; no tests). As of today, I have a grand total of one class where I have taken more than one test. Basically, before exams, that leaves six tests, plus an exam. Good ratio.

I also have five large (as in "A Good 20% of my Mark" large) assignments due before the end of the first week of December (three are due next week!).

Now, I'm not normally one to bitch about workloads. I'll bitch about teachers (rarely), classes (occasionally), fellow students (fairly often), and breaks in between classes (I have a recording of me bitching), but I don't normally care about workloads. I just wish my profs, when they got together over their early-semester coffee, had not required that all of our work be done in the last time-bending month of the semester.

Should you see me in the year 2020 still looking a spritely 22, don't worry, I was just travelling at the speed of light for a little while.

Hmmmm...what will the weather be like today?

Crap on a crutch.

The Translucent Man

Keeping in mind that I do not maintain any ill-conceived notions that I have ever been popular, I've actually had three people in the last two weeks or so recognise me as being from Orangeville. I am quite confident that this recognition is solely from my having worked at Blockbuster as long and as often as I did, but still. Doesn't help the sweet-bugger-all-to-do-on-a-Thursday-night problem, but it's nice.

Minor Annoyances

I finally got my story published in the Georgian Eye at school. Some problems, though:

1. It was my story from last month, not this month


2. Only one picture of the many I took


3. No By-line!!

They are just minor annoyances, really. I mean, none of the main sports' (no offence cross-country running) regular seasons have started yet (I shall be quite dead on November 12^th by the way), so I haven't had any particularly big news to report on. Plus, I have gotten my stories in at the very brink of the deadline, and the guy's got a lot of stuff to do, so really, I shouldn't be terribly shocked.

SIDENOTE: I did get about 20 pictures in about a week before the deadline for this month's paper, so I was a little disappointed that none were in there.

But, at the very least, I'm published. And I'm getting to know most of the coaches and players, so I've got a start. Maybe things'll start rolling next month.

The no by-line's bugging me more and more, though.