m o n k e y ' s . t y p e w r i t e r

Not to complain or anything, but I've gone from being stressed and overworked to not having anything at all to do. My day consists of sleeping, watching tv, tinkering with the computer or reading, and then going out at night. It's like I wake up and have no meaningful contribution to society other than to rid the atmosphere of those pesky oxygen molecules.

I'll be glad when I start work in a couple of weeks. I'll have a real paycheque again, meet new people, learn new things, and I'll have new stress and new bills to gripe about here. Life is good.

Blogger is up to its old tricks again.

Happy birthday shout out. Ken has now reached the ripe old age of 19. Meaning he can now legally pay to see boobies.

Pooter seems to finally be up and running properly with WinME and Win2000. Except for the mouse problem in ME. If I move it too fast across the screen it actually jumps backwards a couple of inches. Oh well... about time for a new machine anyway.

Ha. Looking at my stats I see someone meandered over here using AOL 3 and Windows 3.1. Welcome to the eighties, folks.

Sorry Charlie, I'm home and ready watch the Leafs kick some New Jersey arse. If they don't you have full permission to kick mine.

Work is a virtual ghost town right now. At no point today did I see the customers outnumber the staff. (If you look closely you can see tumbleweeds rolling across the storefront.) Me bored.

Ah, garage sales. This morning the street across from my house was littered with old toys, clothes and pieces of furniture as people began their yearly ritual of cleaning out last year's junk from their garages and basements, peddling these wares to fellow packrats.

It's funny to watch sometimes as people will arrive at the crack of dawn to be sure they get the best selection possible, and then spend the morning haggling over merchandise that can't be worth more than five or ten dollars. When their bargain-hunting is finally over they'll clamber into their foreign luxury sedans and speed away.

Welcome to Oakville.

Windows ME blows. Is it too much to ask to have something work when I install it?

Off again to break the pooter. Wish me luck.

Got in last night around 3am from a karaoke bar in Caledonia. (This seems to be a recurring post... I know.) At some ungodly hour this morning Jeffery, a three year-old my mom babysits, burst into my room:

Jeffery: Sanjay! Sanjay! Sanjay! Sanjay! Sanjay! Sanjay! Sanjay! Sanjay! Sanjay! Sanjay! Sanjay! Sanjay! Sanjay! SANjay! SANjay! SANjay! SANjay! SANjay!
Me: Ungh
Jeffery: (pulling sheets, clothes, facial protrusions) Are you sleeping???

He should come equipped with a snooze button.

Damn pooter. Got the new hard drive working properly with the help of Joe. Now other problems. Ugh. If you happen to be standing below my window this evening watch your head. It might start raining pentiums.

Doin' stuff with my machine. Blog in a bit.

I gotta admire the restraint shown by the police force in Quebec City where they are tolerating violent and uninformed shit-disturbers dressed in their own makeshift riot gear toppling barriers and hurling large objects in their general direction. I myself probably would have lost it at the first sign of aggression and picked off a protester or two as they neared the top of the fence. Of course had it been up to me they wouldn't be up there in the first place as the chain link would be electrically charged.

It's probably a good thing that I don't have any kind of authority over anything more significant than my choice of cereal in the morning.

So I was invited to a Stag & Doe Friday night. Couple of my friends are gettin' hitched next month and they were looking to raise some money for the wedding. I was there early so I helped them set things up, and somehow between then and the start of the party I ended up tending the bar with Jeff.

I'd never even been on the other side of the counter before but it didn't take long to get the hang of things, especially since all I had to do was pour the shots and open the beer. (Guests mixed their own drinks.) Better yet I had free reign over the inventory, so for the entire night I was downing beer, jello shooters, rye, peach schnapps and wine. Not all at once when I could help it. Fair compensation for a night's work, especially since I was willing to do it for free.

A very tired and partially drunk Sanjay showed up on the doorstep late that night, and work came very early. Thank God for the folding chair behind the service desk.

In case you were interested, the movie we went and saw was Josie and the Pussycats. At first I didn't like it at all, with the lame dialogue, predictable plot and blatant product placement throughout the scenes. Then as the story unfolded I realized that the movie was actually poking fun at commericalism and the erratic (usually stupid) choices of teenagers, and I started to like it. They even included a subliminal message for our enjoyment.

That, and the actress that played Josie is really cute. Bottom line, not a bad flick for a laugh or two.

Well it's over. I wrote my (hopefully) last exam yesterday and I finally feel liberated, like the day I discovered boxers. It wasn't uneventful though. The fire alarm went off about fifteen minutes after we started writing. We were instructed to stay in our seats for the ten minutes that the alarm was ringing. It turns out it was a false alarm, but what if the building was in flames around us? I personally don't like the idea of being barbecued alive. During that ten minutes I swear I smelled something burning, but that could just have been my overactive imagination again.

After that I spent the afternoon teaching a term's worth economics to some first year students who have an exam today. Then went for dinner with some friends, a movie with Lisa and then met up with some more friends to head down to a karaoke hick bar in the Hamilton East End. Inside there even I felt like white trash. We left around 2am, but not before gracing them with a rousing rendition of "I Touch Myself".

By the time I actually made it in my door it was almost 3am, after getting little to no sleep this week. I'm taking a mental health day today, so if anyone needs me I'll be comatose in front of the TV.

Defer and Amortize.
Wee...

Final day of exams. This will make six in the course of eight days. Just another few hours to keep things together.

Oh, and Go Leafs Go.

The last thing running through the mind of Carolina Hurricanes captain Ron Francis last night. Literally.

To answer your question Stacey, no I didn't make up the dream.

Had a strange dream this afternoon. Yes, you read that right... afternoon. My sleep pattern's that messed up.

I dreamt I was in Tae Kwon Do class. Another student was being graded, and as part of his test he had to repeatedly kick me in the crotch. He hit me so hard in fact, that every time he kicked me I would actually fly off the ground a few inches. Apparently he wasn't doing it right however, because the instructor who was observing came over and demonstrated the proper, more effective way to crush my nads with his foot.

I feel like that right now.

Did you know that each of us is entitled to a $500,000 capital gains exemption upon disposition of shares of a qualified small business corporation? Well did you?

Didn't think so.

It's funny the way the mind works sometimes. My bed is in the process of having the sheets changed, so at the moment there's only the bare mattress on top of the foundation. The label on the side identifies this particular one as Sealy's "Malibu" model. It's been exposed like that for a little while now, but I didn't consciously notice it until I realized I had the song "Malibu" by Hole stuck in my head.

I'm just thankful that Sealy didn't decide to name it "Barbie Girl" instead.

This ad should win an award.

If I hear the phrase "paid-up capital" or "adjusted cost base" one more time somebody is going to be in a lot of pain. I long for the days when a rollover was something an obedient dog would do.

To all you Leaf fans out there, I'm really really sorry. I know I was told to keep my bad luck away from the tv but I couldn't resist the urge.

True story:
Four minutes left to go in the third period, Leafs up 2-0. I decide to watch the last bit of the game and see Cujo complete another shutout. Sens come back to tie it with 35 seconds left in regulation. Shocked and dismayed I leave the game to do more studying. Leafs win it in overtime on their first shot on net.

Don't mind me. I'll just stand in this corner hanging my head in shame until the playoffs are over.

A lesson for the rythmically challenged.

The Oilers and Stars went into overtime tonight. In between the third and fourth periods CBC had a special "overtime edition" news update. Thought that was cool.

One of the stories they touched on was regarding the Summit of the Americas taking place in Quebec. It's a gathering of dozens of world leaders of the Americas in an effort to strengthen trade relations between countries. (The only one not invited was Cuba, for obvious reasons.) There are other topics to be discussed, but trade is the biggest one.

What they also reported on was the gathering of protesters in the city. It's a whole cornucopia of leftist naysayers, coming from environmental, religious, labour and social welfare groups who are opposed to "hemispheric integration".

When will they understand that economic globalization is going to happen no matter what they do? That this is necessary in order to be able to compete with the European Union? That the reason they can put food on their plates is the power of their own capitalist economies? Stupid short-sighted tree-huggers.

It's interesting to note that American protesters attempting to infiltrate Quebec are being turned away by our friendly border guards. In the good ole days of the Cold War I think the guards would have taken it one step further and keyed the words "Communist Rat Bastard" into the protesters' cars as punishment.

Too bad. That might have been fun.

I can see clearly now, the grey is gone...

Recently, three hikers were walking in the wilderness of northern Alberta. The day was nice, the sun shining and everyone was in generally good spirits.

From out of nowhere they were viciously attacked by a ferocious mountain cat which stuck with the speed of lightning, slashing and devouring the three unwary hikers.

Some time later, game wardens stumbled across the grisly scene and noticed that one of the hikers had managed to snap a picture of the beast before being killed. They quickly brought the camera back to the lab and had the film developed so they could get an idea of what they were dealing with.

To this day, the picture haunts them to the bone.

Before I forget, happy Easter folks. Too bad stores are closed. I suddenly feel the urge to sink my teeth into the head of a defenceless bunny. Chocolate, of course. There's none around here.

Ha. Blogger just complained about a "broken pipe" when trying to upload to my server. The last time I heard that the guy who said it was seeing pretty colours.

Shit... overslept this morning. Gotta get my arse in gear.

Leafs won again. And I missed it again. Looks like I'll be taking more flak from Charlie for not watching.

Finished my Consolidations final. Two down, four to go. I'm mentally exhausted and after all of that I may still be in danger of failing the course. I did all of my studying using spreadsheets and I think the hardest part of it was spending three hours reverting back to pencil and paper. That and those damn chirping birds outside of the examination room. Too bad shotguns aren't considered "essential exam material".

Now I move on to Corporate Tax. I'm going to be an even grumpier Sanjay for the next few days, so I'm warning you all now to stay away from me or else I might let your allowable business investment loss carryovers expire. Mwa ha ha.

I'll shut up now.

Heh... just realized that yesterday was Friday the 13th. I guess if you don't really know it's there the bad luck can't happen. Or maybe it took a raincheck and I'm going to hit a tree on the way to my exam. Come to think of it, that's not such bad luck after all.

I can't believe I'm missing the Leafs' first playoff game. Last I heard they were in overtime with the Sens. Stupid dumb stupid stupid finals...

Joe has been complaining about not receiving any fan pics like the popular moronic.org gets. Maybe this will make you feel better, Joe.

Removed some stale linkage from my daily reads list. You know who you are.

Naked News has its first male news anchor. I think from now on I'll stick to CBC. At least I can count on Peter Mansbridge to keep his pants on (I sincerely hope).

Hey Trish, you can find spring here.

This is a message to all of you enjoying your nice weather and your four-day weekends, with your barbecues and your walks in the park and your time spent with loved ones or new motherboards.

You are all bastards and you suck.

On the up side when I eventually take over the world at least I'll know how to do the accounting for the resulting mergers & acqusiitions.

Song stuck in my head right now (much to my dismay):
Shania Twain - That Don't Impress me Much.

Thanks for the words of... um, encouragement Trish. :o) Actually I'll have one more exam to write after these ones, and that's the CMA entrance exam I'll be doing in June. I hear that's one hellish weekend, too. On the plus side I'll be able to bitch about it when I have nothing else worth sharing here. Gotta look on the bright side, right?

The glass is neither half-empty nor half-full. The glass is twice as large as it needs to be.

Broke it off with Kelsey. Sanjay is single again.

Sunny spring weather today. Unfortunately the only light I was able to enjoy came from the flourescent tubes scattered across the ceiling at work. Well, not work exactly. More like play.

The nice outdoorsy-type weather this afternoon resulted in most would-be customers being... well, outdoors. That left me free to fire up the Compaq and try my hand at Quake. Today I learned that when I run off the edge of the map my enemies don't follow. So much for my lemming strategy.

By the way, the MUSA strike's over at Mac. The school basically issued the union an ultimatum with their final terms. The union members voted in favour of the new agreement, which is no surprise considering their weaker bargaining position and the fact that they've gone with little or no pay for over a month now.

The offer is still being submitted for arbitration but in the meantime workers have been advised to return to their jobs on Monday. That's all I'm concerned about; writing my exams. As for the new contract, the workers can strike again and starve themselves another month for all I care. I'll be long gone.

Wow. Friday was my last day of classes for my formal education. Ever. Starting next month I'll be trading in 19 years of being a slave to my books for even more years of just plain being a slave. My last day at Mac was a long one, too. It started out with me attending the classes I normally miss, then an anime film festival on campus (good flicks, nerdy crowd), an end-of-year house party in Caledonia and finally my what's become weekly fight with Kelsey.

Of course when I look back on all of this in 30 or 40 years my selective memory is only going to retain the pleasant parts about my schooling, such as friends, parties and my first time getting laid. Less fond recollections will dissipate like the body heat of a drunken student streaking across campus in winter.

Somehow I don't think the upcoming two weeks of exams will make the cut.

Looks like Jish is experiencing d�j�-vu.

I can't belive how much mucous left my face today. It's getting to the point where that heap of kleenex beside my bed is rivalling the pile of laundry on my chair. If this keeps up the two of them will have it out in a battle for world domination.

I must be allergic to myself or something. At least it'll be over shortly. Either I get better soon or my body shuts down from all of my essential liquids being spewed out onto 2-ply tissue.

I'd take either one of those right about now.

Hey Lana, in response to your question about your fonts, it used to look the same size as my posts. Now it's bigger.

The easiest way to control the font size is to use Cascading Style Sheets insead of the "font size=" property. CSS is supported by most version 4+ browsers and the properties stay the same regardless of each viewer's own settings. I personally use pixels as a measure to set the size. You can find out more about CSS here, or view "style" section on my own page. Hope this helps.

The arrival of spring has different meanings for different people. Some mark the return of the new season with the transition to milder temperatures. Others welcome spring with their first sighting of a red-breast robin. Still others wait for the tips of new green grass to sprout from last year's brown.

Me? I know it's here by the design of new weblog layouts. Happy spring.

I smooshed a small animal the other day while driving home from Caledonia. It was the first time I had hit a living thing with my car that wasn't picketting in front of my school. At first I thought nothing of it. You see, I was born without a soul -- hence my quest to become an integral part of corporate Canada -- so it is very difficult for me to experience many types of emotion, including remorse.

Later I began to think about this furry creature (let's call him Bob) and the reasons he mght have for his fateful trek across the highway. Bob might have been hugry and had noticed a tasty morsel of food on the other side. Or Bob might have had a family and was looking for something for them to eat. Bob could have spotted a young, attractive Bob-ette across the way who was looking for a good time. Or Bob might have had enough of life and decided that ending it was the only way out of his misery.

In any case, my point is there are an infinite number of reasons Bob tried to cross the road, and I ended his attempt in a crunch of bones and flesh. Who am I to decide the fate of another living creature? What if our positions were reversed and that was me trying to get over the highway? What would my family do once they found out I was roadkill?

Then I thought about the damage our chance encounter could've caused to my car. Or the possibility of Bob crossing a few more feet in front of me and causing me to swerve out of the way to collide with an oncoming vehicle.

Stuipid Bob. I'm glad he's out of my life.

BlogVoices is down temporarily. No comments for me. =( Also, the comment counts have been removed (at least until a server upgrade). That bites. It was one of the best features.

Okay for some reason Digital Ramblings doesn't come up any more when doing the aforementioned query, but it did before. You've got to believe me. I swear it. (Really.)

According to Google this website is the number one place to look for anal beads demonstration pictures, most likely because of this entry I made back in January.

Sorry to disappoint you, whomever you are. The apparatus you're looking for is now property of Char, but if you're really nice she just might give you that demonstration.