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

A few days ago I was thinking about friend I handn't seen since I lived in Waterloo four years ago, and decided to look her up. Fortunately she still worked for the same company, so her old email address still worked and I paid her a visit today.

She and her husband have just opened this coffee shop in a farmer's market near their house.

I've always admired people who run their own businesses. It takes balls to put your livelihood at stake, give up the steady paycheque and the company benefits, and the hardest boss you'll ever work for is yourself.

Kudos to them.

This week at work we had our quarterly gathering to recognize co-workers who go above and beyond the call of duty. It was a big production put on by the Human Resources department over lunch hour with speeches and Greek food (in keeping wtih the Olympics theme they chose).

I couldn't believe some of the things people were recognized for though. One was for a girl who answered her pager and fixed a customer's technical problem. The other was someone at a help desk who fixed a client's connection to the network.

How is this "above and beyond" when these people are doing exactly what's in their job description? Recognizing achievments is a good thing, but sadly companies rarely get it right.

At least the food was good.

At the work lunchtable on the subject of babies and nightly feedings.

New Father: Well there's no point in me getting up. It's not like I can breastfeed
Female Co-Worker: Of course you should!
New Father: What for?
Male Co-Worker: Leftovers.

This weekeend I took a drive over to Peterborough and Lindsay to visit a couple of friends of mine. One of them I know from McMaster and the other one was the one who introduced me to Sheila in Kingston. They didn't know each other but they got along great when we hung out on Saturday. Here are some of the highlights:

Delivered a care package
Fed live crickets to a komodo dragon
Got lost going from Peterborough to Lindsay
Had too much wine
Supplied tools for a break and enter
Was referred to as a "lady" at a restaurant
Got my dessert stolen
Hung out at a hick bar
Received advice on how to drive across an ice bridge
Kept awake by the dead crickets' friends
Carved a pumpkin

What was supposed to be a 15 minute nap this evening turned into a three-hour siesta. The worst part was waking up in a panic thinking i was late for work. This Christmas I'm asking for a clock radio with military time display.

I own a property in Hamilton which I started renting out to students in September. This week I got a message from one of them saying that they're freezing because the furnace wasn't working. Great. I asked my dad what could be the cause, and he said all I could do was look for a switch to turn the power on, and the valve for the gas. Otherwise I'd have to all somebody. More money out the door.

So I headed over and went to the basement. I saw the power switch, and it was on. I saw the gas valve, and it was also on. Hmm... what to do? I know shit-all about furnaces but I really didn't want to call anyone in.

So against my better judgement I removed the panel to see what was inside. I heard that there was supposed to be a pilot light somewhere and I didn't see one lighting, but there was a switch that made a hissing noise when I played with it. I went upstairs and got a lighter from one of the tenants and shoved it in the general area of the hissing sound, and voila... pilot light. I switched everything on and put the panel back and the house was well on its way to being warm again.

Those hot wings I had tonight have also given me a different sort of gas problem. Too bad this one can't be solved by probing the dark and noisy areas with a lighter.

At eight o'clock sharp I arrived at the the Mississauga passport office to find a lineup that started almost at the parking lot of the run-down mall. After taking my place behind the rest of the cattle, I was handed a number by one of the officers: 49.

Half an hour passed until I was allowed to climb the stairs, only to find myself part of another line, still outside the actual office. After staring at the back of some guy's head for another 15 minutes they finally let me in the doors to, of course, another line. This one was for pre-screening of documents before being allowed the privellege of waiting in a seat for my number to come up.

Does anyone else see anything wrong with this? Next time I'll look for someone who can make me a fake one. It'd probably be cheaper and I'm sure "Ahmed" would give me better customer service.

This Saturday I went to the Sportsmens Show at Exhibition Place to see the skis and snowboards. I took up snowboarding a couple of years ago and quickly got tired of using crappy rentals. After shelling out ten bucks for parking and another to ten to get in, I didn't end up buying anything. The place was packed and it wasn't really the best venue for someone who didn't know exactly what they wanted. On the plus side I got a keychain bottle opener for entering a Molson's draw. I'm gonna have to open a lot of bottles if I want to get my money's worth.

Hey Alanis, here's a lesson on what irony really is...

I'm at the watch department at The Bay to get a battery changed, only to see the repair guy will be "Back in 20 Minutes".

So, I've got some time to kill. What time will it be 20 minutes from now? As a force of habit I look down at my own wrist, but of course it does me no good. I'm surrounded by displays full of timepieces but no two are showing the same numbers.

Does anybody have a freaking sundial I can use?

I bought myself a Nikon 8700 digital camera a couple of weeks ago from Best Buy and was shopping around for the fitted case to go with it, (along with an extra battery and CF card). I have a camera bag but it's a bit bulky to be carrying around, especially when I'll be walking around on vacation. I finally found this store that stocked it and saw that they had the same camera for $20 cheaper AND they were throwing in the leather case for free. Crap. Should have shopped around.

Happy 24th Birthday Sheila! Hope your new Mexican friends are doing something nice for you today.

Miss you lots!

Exactly on the day that I was planning to wait in government purgatory for a new passport I find out that all the civil servants across Canada are on strike. I'm going to Europe next month and if I show up in Rome without one I'm likely to get an Italian leather boot right up my ass.

I mean, if the guy next to you is making more money, go work there and leave me out of it.

I went out again for another 18 holes of golf this morning. This time the sun didn't even come out. Well it did, but not until after I came home. It was freezing. I ended up taking my frustrations out on the trees as my balls managed to find just about every one. I guess you could say it's payback for all of the bird shit on my car this summer.

Man, I stuffed myself silly today. Being at home is gooood. I also managed to get out for 18 holes of golf at Granite Ridge. The trees on the Escarpment look really nice when the sun comes out in the morning. My game wasn't that good, but it might have something to do with me not being able to feel my hands in the single-digit weather this morning.

After dinner was poker at my buddy's house. We played for a couple of hours and I ended up more or less even on the night. Too bad, I was hoping to take his money. It's his mom's fault. She was distracting me with all of those desserts.

Okay I've decided to take another stab at this weblog thing. I've got all this great stuff going on in my life that you're all just dying to hear about. Well, not really, but sometimes I like to pretend.