"A million monkeys banging on a million typewriters for a million years will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare."

8:30pm and I'm still at my desk, with no end in sight. So how are you spending your Friday night?

Someone found a mouse at work today. Or rather, the leavings of one. It ate through a candy wrapper and left a half-eaten chocolate in his drawer, then left behind some fresh mouse turds for good measure.

As soon as the news was spread the girls over here started freaking and going through their cabinets and bags. What I don’t understand is how (most) women panic at the mere mention of this tiny rodent, yet something as sadistic as spreading hot wax across their crotches and tearing out the offending hair by the roots doesn’t even faze them.

Girls are nuts.

The plan was to have New Year's Eve and New Year's Day off from work to make for a nice four-day weekend. Today I found out that I'm one of four people in the building who has to work on Monday because the U.S. runs on a different schedule from us. Crappity crap crap.

Finally Blogger's back up again. Apparently someone hacked into the site and was stealing ftp logins and passwords on Christmas. Can you feel the holiday love and cheer?

Well, this is what I was gonna post yesterday:

"Happy Birthday to me,
Happy Birthday to me!
Happy..."

Well, you get the picture. Thanks to Joe, Ken, Char and Stacey for the birthday wishes.

Both Christmas and my birthday kinda came and went. Christmas I did the usual family thing. I dunno, the holiday has kinda lost its appeal to me. It's more for the kids, I guess. They get all the loot. My take this year was sparser than normal.

My birthday was the same. It was spent more or less in front of the tv and passed by like any other day. I did have a surprise party thrown for me a few weeks back. That was nice. I dunno, I kinda long for the times when days like these actually meant something. I wanna be a kid again, not 24.

Besides the whole Christmas thing, December 25th marks a more important anniversary. One year ago today I created this weblog. As with many of them, mine had a profound beginning to send me off to weblog stardom: 'This is my first post. Woohoo!'. Looking back through my archives, my entries really haven't improved much from that day.

Merry Christmas, everyone. Enjoy your new toys!

Time for me to start wrapping. Now where did those gift bags get to? Dammit, same thing every year. Oh well, I guess I'll break out the markers and some paper bags. They won't know the difference, right?

Woohoo! Shopping's done. New TV's arrived and set up. Turkey and fruitcake here I come. Well, maybe not fruitcake, but some other holiday snacks. Time to finally kick back and relax.

This one is for Trish, who can't get enough of my humour.

A Santa flasher jumped from out of the bushes at a bus stop in front of two old ladies sitting on the bench, and opened his coat.

The first one had a stroke...

...the second couldn't reach it.

I had a day away from the office today and spent it sorting food for the Salvation Army food drive. It was collected from local schools and businesses and sent to a warehouse to be sorted and then trucked to the distribution centres. It's amazing the sheer volume that came through there. It's even more amazing that they never get enough. It was depressing at times because it didn't seem like anything was getting done. We'd clear one skid and three more would arrive in its place.

There were tons of rice, pasta, canned vegetables, canned whoop-ass, canned fruit, cereals and other things in every variety. I discovered today that I have issues with tape guns. Every time I'd tape a box shut the end would come out and stick to the rest of the roll. It's a good thing I'm in accounting because I probably wouldn't last a day in a warehouse.

Well my back and my feet are aching and right now I'm feeling each of my 23 years in these old bones. If anyone feels compelled to give me a massage I'd love to hear from you.

Man, today really felt like Friday. It could of been the relaxed (and well... empty) atmosphere at work, but more likely it's because our regular Friday trek across the street to the Firken pub got moved to today. It's amazing how much difference a pint or three can make after rotting in front of the same Excel spreadsheet all afternoon.

Cheers.

Sigh... it's so lonley in the office these days. I'm the only one here in a department that has a normal compliment of 15. Well, there is this one girl, but she sits across the room and doesn't really talk. Motivation to do anything is becoming a problem.

I wanna go home..

Excerpt from today's Mecawilson:

"My kids are getting their god damned clothes from Target - all the way through High School. That's all there is to it. And if Junior complains that I'm cramping his style with the ladies - I'll subsidize a whore for him once a year. I figure a roll in the hay will still be cheaper than the amount I'd spend on clothes.

And if we have girls? Then my brand-name clothing sanctions will just make sure none of the cool boys try to bang them. Unless cheap clothes are in then - and if that's the case, I'll just bind their feet and not let them buy any zit cream.

I'm destined to be a god damned King Lear."

Hillarious.

How to tell if your ass is too small.

Oww... my neck is killing me. It started as a mild ache last night and now I can't turn my head side-to-side without feeling a sharp pain shoot up to my skull. I'm lucky I didn't kill somebody on the drive home this morning from Hamilton as I had to assume that no one was in my blind spots.

If anyone needs me I'll be twitching on my bed (assuming I can ever find a comfortable position to lie down).

Name that Man Breast

Our department at work contributed to a charity thing for abused mothers where we buy them Christmas gifts they couldn't otherwise afford. One of the girls at work was going to go drop them off at the house, but needed directions. My boss was looking for a map when I suggested Mapquest, on the web. She naturallly assumed the URL was mapquest.ca, since it was a Canadian map we were looking for.

If you follow the link you'll see why we all had a good laugh.

You're invited to check out Dave's new backend.

On the drive home from work today I discovered two things:

1. Parking your car at the right angle in the blowing snow is an important factor in getting free travel on the 407.
2. The heated side mirrors actually do work if you forget to brush the snow off.

Cool.

The Ontario Human Rights Commission has ordered Famous Players to pay $48,000 in damages to five disabled Torontonians who couldn't use the Eglinton, Uptown and Backstage theatres, because there was no elevator to accommodate their wheelchairs in those old buildings. They were also ordered to make the theatres wheel chair accessible or close up shop. Rather than spend the hundreds of thousands of dollars it would have cost to do this, they chose to shut down the historic theatres.

I'm all for having wheelchair access, but only where the cost makes sense. New buildings, for example, or government buildings. Since when is access to specific movie theatres a human right? Now because of this ruling these vintage theatres are closed, preventing access to both handicapped and able-bodied people. And since when is the "mental anguish" from not being able to see a movie worth $2,000 a pop? I would have happily abstained from Harry Potter if someone paid me to settle for the tv in my living room.

Stuff like this has gone too far. If a private business chooses not to serve a particular market they shouldn't have to. They will be penalized with a loss of sales, and the customers will go to their competitors. Basic economics.

Wheelchair-bound people should quit whining and be happy with their premium parking spaces. Maybe if I complain loudly enough someone will compensate me for having to walk three miles to the mall entrance on Christmas Eve.

Mom is back from Trinidad.

This toy will be going to a 3-5 year old boy who needs a Christmas present. It's part of a charity event at DuPont where employees can choose a child's name off of a Christmas tree and purchase a toy to donate.

I went out today at lunch to the Zellers in Erin Mills Town Centre. My plan was to get a Nerf gun, but the only ones I saw were for ages six and up. They have some wicked guns these days. There's one that can fire up to 20 missiles without having to reload, one at at time or all at once. Dodge this, mom! The one I have right now can only fire 8 missiles. No comparison.

I didn't think 3 to 5 years old wasn't that far from 6 years. I mean, if it's a precocious kid they could pick it up really fast. Point. Shoot. Reload. Repeat until victim cries. Simple, right?

My coworker didn't agree, however, so she dragged me away from the artillery and over to the Tonka section. It's too bad. That gattling gun was calling my name. I mean, as a mature and responsible adult I would have to ...er, try it out to make sure it's safe, right?

Growing up, watching tv for me was akin to a daily dose of heroin. My mother always claimed that sitting so long in front of the tube would spoil my eyes. That's not to say that I didn't do other things as well, but taking my tv away was like denying a pregnant woman her--well, anything.

In my early years there was Mr. Dressup and Sesame Street (the old school one where they taught you Spanish). A little later on there was the afterschool ritual of Scooby Doo, Thundercats and GI Joe. Always there was Hockey Night in Canada, watching the Leafs get trampled every Saturday night in the 80's. My teenage years brought with them the introduction of the likes of Homer Simpson and Al Bundy.

There were also those world-changing events (good and bad) that I followed on the news. The collapse of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of Communism in the former Soviet Union, and more recently the collapse of the World Trade Center.

I don't watch nearly as much tv now as I once did, more due to time contraints more than anything else. There is always something else on the go.

Tonight over dinner I happened to flip onto WWF Raw is War, where the two female managers--big-busted and in outfits that looked painted on--started beating on each other in the ring while the male wrestlers were occupying themselves. The climax of the match occurred where one of the girls did a flying faceplant into the crotch of the other. This was replayed two seconds after the fact just in case you were busy opening a beer and missed it.

When the match was over I started thinking, is this what television has come to in the 21st century? How did my programs go from being brought to me by the letter "P" to being sponsored by Rob Zombie? What kind of neanderthals are we that we find this sort of trash entertaining?

Then I thought about how much better that flying faceplant would have looked once I got my new 36" tv.

Ha. Charlie linked this pong animation. Funny stuff. Go there now.

The Christmas party wasn't bad; better than I expected. I was also expecting all sorts of cops out that night, as I hear they target office Christmas parties. I actually did go through a RIDE dealo about two minutes away from the office, but it was on the way to the party. They were gone on the way back. That makes sense.

The highlight of the night was me winning the grand door prize. People in my department were making comments about my streak of luck even before tonight. In about 7 months working there I've won:

- a rack full of wine
- a hiking backpack that folds into a chair
- disposable camera
- gift certificates

Now I have a 36" tv to add to that list. They're going to think I have mob connections or something.

Before they started drawing names, one of the conditions of winning a prize was that you got a hug from either the old man (for gals), or the cute girl that works across the atrium from me (for guys). With Kelsey beside me I mentioned being just as happy for the hug as I was for the tv. She said we were due for another one of our "talks". Hee.

Off to the office Christmas party. I'm not sure how much fun it's gonna be, but if it sucks I can always round up the young people and hit a bar or something.

I just found my first gripe about Office XP. Today someone sent me an email with a .exe attachment. Potentially, executable attachments may contain viruses, but like anyone else with half a brain I update my anti-virus software continuously.

Outlook is trying to be smart and is blocking access to the file. Navigating through the help menus I found out that this is the default setting--fine--but the only way to change it is to have the administrator of my Exchange Server adjust the settings. This is a home comptuer, dammit, not one connected to an elaborate series of networks. For all intents and purposes, I am the administrator.

Let me open my damn attachment and let me suffer the consequences. Now I may never know what wonders awaited me from CARTE_DE_NOEL.exe. Bah humbug to security overkill.

Addendum:

While poking around the weeb I found an article about the Outlook 2002 security issues here, and a workaround here.

Holiday cheer, here I come.
This is what I almost missed. (No viruses, I promise!)

Happy Birthday, Char!

I don't usually do these tests, but this one looked interesting. (Translation: It was short.)

If I were a work of art, I would be Vincent Van Gogh's The Starry Night.

I am a tiny village at peace while overhead rages the tumult of the heavens. Objects whirl and flash around me in a fevered haze only partially reflected in reality while I remain grounded and secure in my isolation.

Which work of art would you be? The Art Test

Thanks guys for all of the words of sympathy. I really appreciate it.

With mom away for a week, I'm forced to relearn all of the chores I had to do when I lived by myself: dishes, laundry and (gasp) making my bed. At least my dad takes care of dinner. The lunch mom packs every morning (with my name written in so as not to mix it with my brother's) won't be there, but I think my budget can include a few cafeteria lunches. I'm just not sure my stomach feels the same way.

Coming home tonight--migrating from one computer screen to the next--I was thinking about what to write on my weblog. I was considerning complaining again about the long hours at work. Or mabye a recap of what I did this weekend. Maybe a joke or something.

All of that became inconsiquential when I walked in the door and my mom informed me that my grandmother (her mother) had passed away. She had a heart attack in her sleep this afternoon, her second in less than a week. This was the same grandmother whose 75th birthday I flew down to Trinidad for a couple of months ago. I was hoping to see her again next summer. Mom was hoping the whole family would go next year, including my newborn neice. Now she'll never get to hold her great-granddaugher.

Mom will be flying down tomorrow for the funeral, and returning next Wednesday. I wish I could go as well, but it's impossible to take time off work now.

Tonight I hugged my mom and told her I loved her. I love you too, grandma. Wherever you are.

Happy birthday to my little brother. He's 22 now. I'm getting him the same thing I give him every year. A kick in the pants.

- Twelve-hour days with with no break for lunch make Sanjay something something.

- Go crazy?

- Don't mind if I do!

When lying in bed with someone is it wrong to fluff the blankets after breaking wind? I don't think so. In fact, I find it quite funny.

Sometimes--okay most of the time--I think moms come from another planet. Today for example, mine wanted to know what the temperature was outside so she would know how to dress. She walked straight past the front door and into the living room to turn on the Weather Network. It took ten minutes for them to cycle to the current temperature, when she could have taken two seconds to stick her head out the door.

The next instance, she was cooking and had the windows downstairs open so the smell wouldn't linger. It was so cold my nipples were hard enough to cut glass, so I cranked up the furnace, and she yelled at me for wasting heat. No mom, having the windows wide open in December is wasting heat. And having cooking smells in the house isn't necessarily a bad thing. It wasn't even one of her hardcore curry dishes, either. Geez.

(Speaking of moms, I'm glad to hear Joe's mom is feeling better. I wonder how he's been feeding himself?)