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

As of a couple of days ago, work has started belting out Christmas tunes through the speakers in the cafeteria. At first I thought they were just testing it or something, because on the first day they kept fiddling with the volume. It continued though, and every day we don't go out for lunch we get to listen to such classics as "Jingle Bell Rock" and "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer". As if it wasn't hard enough to keep our food down.

It's times like this I'm glad to be away from retail. You think an hour a day of this stuff is bad, try a full eight-hour shift. If Quake came out with a version where Anne Murray could be hunted down and made full of holes I would have snapped it up in a second. Eat rail gun, Anne.

I installed Windows XP last night on my main machine. So far everything looks pretty good. I'm impressed, though it's a little sluggish on my PC. Time for an upgrade methinks. I'm way past due.

Not much to write about today, so a selection of some Dilbert's quotes from induhviduals:

"It's an exercise in fertility."
"Hindsight is 50-50."
"Just use your own excretion."
"You are never going to fail unless you try."
"We're scraping the bottom of the iceberg."
"Today is like the day Rome was built in. We can't afford to have any fiddlers."
"The project is going down the toilet in flames."
"He might be barking at a red herring."
"You're treading on thin water."
I think he meant we should cross our T's and dot our I's but it came out this way: "Be sure we all cross our eyes."
"He's as deaf as a bat."
"We don't want to stick our necks out and get our asses chopped off."
"I gave him a real mouthful."
"I really took the bull by the hands."
"He doesn't know his hole from an ass in the ground."
"You should talk to her. She is a minefield of information."
"I can't remember but it's right on the tip of my head!"
"You can lead a pig to pearls..." and then he trailed off.
"Thanksgiving is early this year because the first Thursday fell on a Monday."
"The skeleton is there. You just have to sharpen it and put the decorations on the tree."
"We need an escape goat."

We were having a conversation at work about the upcoming Christmas and the toys we can buy for the needy. One of the girls I enjoy tormenting mentioned getting some Toy Story figures last year for a boy. I told her she'd better remember it, because it's probably the last time she'll ever give anyone a Woody.

I crack me up.

I've just finished a new layout for Kelsey, though she doesn't know it yet. I guess she will soon enough. It didn't quite turn out like how I envisioned, but it will do.

Thanks to In A Mood Designs for some handy graphics.

You know, the month of November really doesn't have much going for it. The weather starts to turn sucky and there aren't any holidays (unless you work for the government). Daylight savings has just finished, making the drive home from work depressing as practically all of my daylight hours have been spent under fluorescent lighting.

About the only thing I can count in this dismal month is those crates of clementines that arrive in the grocery store all the way from Spain, chock full of citrussy goodness.

Prevents scurvy, too.

The Parti Quebecois is back again spreading their propaganda. This time Bernard Landry was in Toronto touting the glories of a divided Canada. "Let's say it a new way now: separatism is dead. Welcome to sovereignty-association."

Of course he refused to clarify why, in a speech Nov. 18, he made reference to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and Quebec's efforts to win independence in the same sentence.

Can't this issue just crawl away somewhere and die? I mean really. If Quebec were to separate, their first official act as a sovereign nation would be to request foreign aid from Canada. To hell with Landry and his cause.

I've just change the Song of the Moment from Ladylike by Big Wreck to Crash into Me by Dave Matthews. Given my post about the car accident I thought that was kinda funny.

Okay, so I'm probably the only one that thought so.

New festive StorTrooper is here. Note the strategic placement of the mistletoe.

I was witness to a car accident today. I was leaving Kelsey's place in the afternoon when i saw woman was trying to make a left turn in an intersection near me. She misjudged the speed of an oncoming Lincoln and the two collided. Fortunately no one was hurt, but the entire front end of her car was accordioned. The other guy managed to swerve a little bit out of the way at the last second and had minor damage to the driver side front.

When I saw it happen I ran over to make sure they were okay, and called the police. They arrived after about half an hour and then began the paperwork, which included a statement from me. The lady's house was only a few minutes away, and her husband ran over as soon as he heard. The trucks towed the wreckage away and I drove them both home.

That was their only car and they only had it for about two months. It looked to me like a Chrysler Cirrus, but soon I guess it will be occupying a spot in a scrap heap next to a K-Car. It could have been worse, though. Cars can be replaced. People can't.

Thursday took the afternoon off work as I was invited to Kelsey's grandmother's place for Thanksgiving. I gave up breakfast and lunch that day to be sure I went in with a healthy appetite, as I was warned about the volumes of food I was expected to consume. I'm glad I did. Everything was delicious, including the entire drumstick I devoured from a 17 lb turkey. Even Kelsey was surprised with how much I ate.

It was a late night, though. After leaving there we had to stop at her mother's place as I was asked to drop her sister off at her dad's place in Grimsby. It was only supposed to take a few minutes, but by the time Kelsey's mom finished reminiscing about her wedding (they were watching the tapes) and Kelsey loaded up with food, it was very late. By the time I finally got back to her place it was close to 1am. I slept for a couple hours and then came home to send an email to my boss telling her I'd be late the next morning. The next day I got a reply back asking me what I was doing sending email at 3:30 am.

At least the little sleep I got was pretty sound. Must have been the turkey.

I finished work today at about 6:30. On my way home had a couple of errands to run, meaning I didn't make it home until an hour or so after that. During that time I had built up a healthy appetite.

I got home to find that mom had cooked a meatless meal. When I finished my dinner I found the only thing it did for me was create more of an appetite. I found this was true no matter how much I ate.

I didn't claw my way up to the top of the food chain to become a vegetarian. I need protien, dammit. If it didn't have to be hunted down and killed before making its way onto my plate, I'm not interested.

I had a pleasant surprise the other day when I went to get a haircut. I go to First Choice for my cuts. It's usually about a half hour wait, so I bring a book. Normally I leave my name and go have a seat. This time when I went, one of the hairdressers recognized me and remembered my name, saving me the hassle of having to spell it out for them. Good, I thought.

I moved to take my seat amongst the crowd of other people waiting their turn, but that same hairdresser called me up to the chair before I could sit down. Cool.

Apparently she's been cutting my mom's hair as well, and since she's from Trinidad, I'm sure the two of them had a lot to gab about. She's a nice lady and does a fairly decent job with my hair. 15 minutes and I was outta there.

I could get used to ths VIP treatment.

I went out to dinner Saturday night with Kelsey and a couple other people. We had reservations at East Side Mario's for 5:30, and I was told to make sure I was on time because they were very busy and they wouldn't hold the table forever. When we got there and announce who we were to the hostess, she led us to the table, and for some reason kept flashing me smiles. I just figured it was because of my rugged good looks, but it turned out this dinner was for more than a couple of people. A crowd of my friends were there to wish me a happy birthday.

It was especially surprising since my birthday isn't actually until December 26th. I guess I had mentioned to her some time ago that I've never had a birthday party, due mostly to the inconvenient day it falls on. People were either too tired to do anything after Christmas, or they just forgot about it completely. Of course this meant that there was a distinct lack of presents, but I didn't really mind.

Okay, I lied. I did mind. I'm a selfish and greedy bastard, so there.

So now that I've finally been thrown a birthday party, I guess I can take that off my list of rants. Don't worry, there's still a whole slew of things out there for me to complain about. I'll only get more crotchety in my old age.

Those shithead protestors are at it again. This time they targeted the inaugural G-20 summit in Ottawa. I don't know what they're bitching about now. These meetings in Ottawa focused on the financial implications of the Sept. 11 attack.

If they really want to help the poor, then volunteer in a soup kitchen. Somehow I doubt that attacking businesses and police officers isn't doing anyone any good. It's a pity the police don't use real bullets. That would definitely put an end to this bullshit.

I'm hungry. Someone feed me.

So I went to see the new Harry Potter movie last night at Silver City. The place was madness. I had ordered my tickets in advance, but we still had to line up to get inside the theatre. The line stretched all the way outside. They also had armed police officers standing by the ticket booth. Were they expecting some sort of Harry Potter riot?

I don't know if it's because it's been awhile since I've seen a PG movie, or if it was because it was hyped up so much, but I was pretty disappointed. I was expecting less in the way of bad dialogue and more in the way of special effects. There was definitly opportunity for it. The writers did more or less stay true to the book though. Kind of hard to do in a movie, even in two and a half hours.

Overall, two thumbs down from Sanjay. I dunno, maybe the kids liked it. Then again, they'll eat up anything. Just look at N'Sync.

Twice within a week I nearly got nabbed by the cops for speeding on the way to work. The first time they had set up the radar trap in the same place I got my ticket this summer. The second time they had two motorbikes patrolling up and down the road. It's a good thing I can recognize that radar trap now, and also a good thing I can disinguish a cop's bike from a normal one.

I used to tear down that country road at around 120 km/h (it's a 60 zone). It's nice to see that my tax dollars are going towards something worthwhile, because I'm sure those bails of hay are really offended by the speeding motorists.

Y'know, their time would be better spent keeping the livestock off the pavement.

I went to the new Dominion around the corner from my house to pick up some groceries. They just opened up only a few days ago, and I guess they're trying to make a good first impression. The store was pretty much empty of customers due to the time of day, yet it seemed I couldn't turn around without bumping into one of the staff. They were all friendly and were climbing over top of one another to cater to my whims. I felt like a king.

Now if only I could get them to train Kelsey...

On their drive to work, some people have to fight traffic. Some have to navigate through construction. Others rubberneck while driving past the twisted wreckage of a car accident.

Me? I had to drive around a cow. Someone on Sixth Line had left their gate open to their farm resulting on livestock standing on the shoulder of the road. The cow scampered away last-minute as my Taurus zoomed past.

I guess it was hitchhiking.

I got my flu shot done at work. It took two seconds and was relatively painless. It was kind of pointless since I rarely get sick (flu or otherwise), but there's this girl across from me who won't get it done because she's afraid of needles and I just wanted to demonstrate how ridiculous she was being.

Few things in life are more disappointing than having an entire cupcake fall on the ground icing-first.

Two headlines from this weekend's Oakville Beaver--yes, our newspaper is called the Beaver--newspaper: Salvation Army Thrift Store Robbed and Two Charged with Stealing Poppy Money.

I say we bring back flogging for anyone who has the audacity to steal form charity.

Cable is moving at the speed of dial-up today. I've seen fingernails grow faster.

Canada 3000 Airlines regrets to advise that it will cease flying operation effective November 9th, 2001. We are therefore unable to transport passengers to their destinations, and recommend that they seek alternative methods of travel.

We very much regret this action and wish to thank our passsengers for their patronage in the past.

So much for any compensation for my vacation from hell. Drat.

What a great day I had at work yesterday. My boss was gone, I spent most of the day socializing, took an extended lunch to browse around the mall, and spent more time in the afternoon at a get-together for someone's retirement. I still have a lot of work to do, but the motivation just wasn't there.

After all of that, I organized a trek across the street to the Firken for some drinks. (I've found that social life is really lacking over there.) It started out with just myself and a friend of mine, and the group ended up being about 14 people. Even some guy from another company (who used to work with us) showed up. I didn't know who he was until today.

Every weekday should be Friday.

Welcome to my new home. At least this server seems a little quicker than the old one.

Pretty-boy Oscar De La Hoya had to postpone his December 8th fight against Russian boxer Roman Karmazin. He's recovering from surgery required to fix his ~~limp~~ injured wrist.

I'm trying to get this site moved over to cogeco.ca but I'm having issues here. I can FTP my files just fine, but trying to view the page gives me an error message. Apparently I'm not authorized to view anything on home.cogeco.ca. Guess it's my own fault for not getting around to using a real host.

If you come here Saturday and this page has disappeared, you know why. Hopefully by then the new one will be up here. Copy shortcut now or forever hold your peace.

Loyal and true.
Unafraid of hard work.
Willing to persevere to achieve my aims.

According to The Sorting Hat, I belong in Hufflepuff.
(Teifed from Joe)

I've got a cold sore on the roof of my mouth and it hurts like a bitch to eat or drink anything. Especially coffee, as I found out this morning. Owwwww...

Guess what DVD I bought?
(Along with about a million other people)

Blogger's sucking again. So is this new comments engine. I know, complain complain complain...

The wife and baby of a manager from work were involved in a car accident on the 401. Apparently someone hit their car and caused it to spin into the path of a tractor-trailer. Though shaken up a little, both of them came out of it okay. The driver who hit them fled the scene.

The same morning a double-murder happened two floors up from where another friend from work lives. It's on The Star's website here. Does any good happen in this world any more?

Looks like Excite@Home is having some financial difficulties. I've got to convert my email and websites to cogeco.ca before Saturday. What a pain in the arse.

I paid $25 a few weeks ago to enter a hockey pool. It's pretty big; the top 10 teams get money. I checked my standing a couple days ago and I'm 117th. I had to log in specially because officepools.com will only display the top 100. My guys are really sucking off this season. I guess I can kiss that 25 bucks goodbye.

I had another crappy day at work. I guess it's my fault for deciding to leave "early" on Friday--early being 5:30pm. All of the issues that I thought could wait until Monday decided to come back and bite me in the ass. And just for fun, I had the entire Americas region waiting for me to get my entries done so they could consolidate and close the books. Essentially I had an entire continent waiting for me to finish my work.

No pressure.

One day working and already BlogBack is crapping out on me. I guess you get what you pay for.

Installed a new comment engine from BlogBack. Hopefully they'll be a bit better than the other one. Not that anyone comments here anyway.

That was the most entertaining World Series I've seen in a long time. Way to go Diamondbacks.

I went to Toronto to visit my neice today. As expected she was wrinkly and pinkish and slept a lot. She's beautiful. Anisa Belle Seegobin weighed in at 8 pounds, 12 ounces. Apparently that's kinda big for a newborn, so I'm sure my brother had to listen to a lot of complaints about the delivery. I also noticed that she has more hair than her grandfather, and I mentioned as much at the first opportunity. My dad wasn't impressed.

Seeing the baby for the first time I wanted to bring some sort of present, but there are few places I feel more out of place than those baby stores. There I found mothers yammering on about formula and diapers and strollers and such. I picked up what I needed and got the hell outta there. As soon as I left the store I headed for the auto parts section in Canadian Tire. I didn't actually need anything, but just being there made me feel a lot better.

Next weekend the baby is coming over here so my relatives can see her. Hopefully by then I'll have a picture to put up.

There ain't no party like an S-Club party. Woo.

I was invited to go glow-in-the-dark bowling last night with a group of friends. After the exhausting week I had I didn't want to go at first, but later on I decided I needed some way to relieve my frustrations.

Now I can count the number of times I've been bowling on one hand, so the first couple games I played I didn't get above 60. For those of you like me who don't know (or don't care about) bowling, it's about equivalent to playing a round of darts without actually hitting the board.

I found out last night that there were a few fundamentals I missed when releasing the ball. My Superman dive that left me sprawled out on the lane, while impressive, isn't really conducive to knocking the pins down. Neither is picking up a ball too heavy for my girlish wrists and charlie-horsing myself on the backswing with it. After everything else failed I finally resorted to bowling overhand, but I don't think the staff there appreciated the bang the ball made on their shiny wood surface.

I really think that I should stick to hockey. It's less painful.

I am officially an uncle. Yesterday my brother and his girlfriend gave birth to a baby girl. I don't know her name yet but we're going over to visit this weekend. Congratulations. Time to break out the cigars.

I'm stuffed. My boss brought in candies an cupcakes to snack on while we were working. Because a lot of us were working late, we also ordered pizza. That's twelve hours of nonstop grease and sugar.

Ah well, the grease will help the blood slide better through arteries.