Why I may not vote

I'm all about election stuff. I love elections. I realize that they cost a ton to administer but at the same time I feel that it's the one time when all of the politicians have to actually prove that they're doing something worthwhile in Ottawa. I am also deeply opinionated about many issues which allows me to lean strongly towards one party or another based on their policies.

However, I may not be voting in the upcoming election. Despite having voted in 2 federal elections in 2 different ridings I'm not on the voters list. I called my local returning officer's office on Thursday and they told me that they could mail me a form to fill out. I received a call today telling me that I would have to come down to the office (which is completely out of my way) in order to fill out the forms. Seriously for all the discussion about why voter turnout is so low no one has thought that perhaps this might be the reason? Not only do I have to go to register to vote but then I have to actually go out and vote.

Maybe I should just be grateful that I live in a democracy that allows me the right to vote at all, but at the same time I can't remember it being this difficult to vote in the previous two elections. This election also marks the first time that I'm actually have to seriously evaluate who I intend to vote for, for the first time I'm divided on the issues.

Incidentally I now live in one of those "swing ridings" where the incumbent may not win back their seat. Which probably makes it all the more important to vote given that I could make an actual difference in the outcome. For the record my old riding was won by 111 votes in the last election.

I'm kind of worried about myself

I think you're all fully aware that I am playing fantasy football against a bunch of guys that I work with. If you're not aware of this fact then I probably haven't talked to you in the past month. Also as you know I've abandoned Drew Brees (who I love) for Jay Cutler as my starting QB.

Ever since I posted that McDonald's commercial I've found myself with a growing crush on Jay Cutler. It doesn't hurt that he's putting up ridiculous numbers and winning me fantasy match-ups. Also we have a mutual dislike of Phillip Rivers. I don't know the whole Rivers/Cutler history but Phillip Rivers is a douchebag. Actually my dislike of Phillip Rivers probably stems from this exact incident involving Jay Cutler:



Other Jay Cutler randomness that only makes him cuter in my very messed up mind. He's 6'3, I have this thing about height since my younger brother is 6'3. He's from Santa Clause, Indiana. He's got Type I diabetes. He played his college football at Vanderbilt which is not exactly known as a football school.

But he's not exactly cute. Case in point this is the best picture I could find of him:

But only liking a person because they are cute is shallow right? So you should all be encouraging this then.

Election Sign Count

Okay I lost count. But I DID see my first two NDP signs in my riding. I guess there is hope yet. I just found out that it's going to be quite the process to register to vote for this election. And the returning officers office is in the stupidest place. It's in like the far corner of the riding. If I weren't so election geeky I probably wouldn't bother voting.

Time for a Change

As you can see I've changed my blog layout... again. I get bored easily and changing it up every once in a while probably keeps people coming back. Or not.

The Cat Came Back... or Not

When I got sick at the end of my 2nd year of university my parents offered to get me a puppy. Not being much of a dog person I opted for a somewhat smilar though less slobbery option and got a kitten. I loved my cat. Sure we didn't know right away if it was a boy or girl (the owner told us it was a girl and we never bothered to check until it started growing boy parts), but it was mine. Thank god I chose a unisex name.

I had my kitten with me in my apartment for almost a year before we moved out. He even had his own room in the apartment, though he much prefered to cuddle up on me. My favorite apartment/cat story was when my brother left his Chem textbook open on the sofa overnight and we woke up to find it scattered all over the living room floor. At least it was a second hand textbook.

When I moved out of the apartment back into residence for my last year of University my cat went to live with my parents on the farm. They weren't big fans of a cat in the house so they let him outside whenever he wanted. He became an outdoor/indoor cat. He still liked to cuddle with me when I was home watching TV, but no one else seemed to like him much.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because my cat is missing. Apparently there was a big thunderstorm back home about 2 weeks ago and he's been missing ever since. I hope that he's just lost but it's much more likely that he's dead. Especially since my parents have talked to all of the neighbours and no one has seen him. Poor kitty. I'll miss you.

Switching Allegiances

Last year just before the playoffs I made a list of my favorite NFL teams. It really wasn't so much a complete list as my top 5 teams followed by "a whole lot of teams no one cares about" and finally the Green Bay Packers and the New England Patriots.

My Top 5 Teams were:
1. Indianapolis Colts
2. New York Giants
3. New Orleans Saints
4. Dallas Cowboys
5. Denver Broncos

Hey, don't question my choices just go with it. Now I studied Economics at University so I've quite familiar with the concept of transitivity, that is if A is preferred to B and B is preferred to C then A must be preferred to C. So why in the world was I cheering for the Broncos over the Saints yesterday? The answer lies in my fantasy football team.

As I've noted before I have both Jay Cutler (who has been tearing it up) and Drew Brees (who despite how he's playing is hot) on my team. So deciding who to play week to week is kind of touch and go. This week I went with Cutler. As it turns out I would have had more points with Brees but I stand by my choice give last week's results.

Lucky for me I still had Jeremy Shockey to pick up some of those Saints offensive points (though not very many). For those of you who don't know he used to play for the Giants and I didn't like him there either but I'll deal since he's picking up some fantasy points for me.

See even he is admiring his abs. So I don't feel so bad.

I'm Done

Who knew that those two words (well one is a contraction) could cover so many different situations.

First of all the feeling that you can't do anything. We went out for lunch today and I'm absolutely stuffed. To use the words of one of the guys I went with I feel a little like a zombie now. Which of course makes the afternoon drag on and on. Remind me not to do that next time. So as far as eating anything more today, I'm done.

The second current situation is a friendship. Oddly enough I read an article not too long ago (in fact it may have been Monday) about when it's time to let a friendship go. I'm not sure if it's just because I recently read this article or it just gave me the confirmation that I needed that I'm in an unhealthy friendship but either way there it is. It's not that I have a whole lot of close friends but at the same time being treated badly does not a friend make. So again, I'm done.

My 200th Post

I know scary isn't it that I've actually had enough to say to write 200 posts. Okay maybe that's a little strong but hey you're reading this so you must enjoy my randomness at least just a little bit. So here are some balloons to celebrate my excessive amounts of crazy!

It's Wednesday

I hate hump day. In true pessimist fashion I have trouble looking at it as half way to the weekend, instead it's only half way through my work week. It's also about this time in the week where I start to feel really tired and have to really drag ass in order to get through the day.

There are some nice things about a Wednesday though. For example the Hump Day Hottie over at Ladies... Also I don't have any annoying weekly reports to run like I do on Mondays. There have already been 2 days to discuss how bad my fantasy team was on Sunday/Monday so now I can prepare for the next week.

Also a plus is that I get paid tomorrow.

Election Sign Count - September 15th

For those of you who are not so football-ly inclined here is another election sign count post

Liberal - 8
Conservative -4
Green Party - 1

These are not exact numbers as they are the cumulative from the past week and well sometimes it hard to remember which signs you've already counted but I'm going to say they're pretty close. There is also the issue of the 41% poll that came out last Friday. That's majority territory for those of you who don't know and it was in favor of the Conservatives. But it might just be enough to scare some voters back to the left to prevent the majority. Let's just hope it's not too far in the other direction (ie: Liberal Majority). I've fine with a minority either way but a majority is a scary prospect at this moment.

Sonofa...

You know who has the number one ranking in Fantasy Football right now? Jay Cutler. Do you know who has Jay Cutler on their fantasy roster but went with Drew Brees instead because she's a freaking idiot? Oh right that would be me. God Dammit!

Also just to confirm my post from earlier today, I went from most points last week to second last this week. Seriously what the hell team. Also Braylon Edwards is getting sat next week!... maybe... okay I'll probably take all week to think about it and then give him a third chance.

But here is an amusing McDonald's add with my new starting QB, Jay Cutler. Oh and also he'd better not start sucking as soon as I pull him off the freaking bench.

God my fantasy team sucks

Gah! Last week my team absolutely killed. This week they all stunk. Actually I can't say that exactly as I'm starting the Dallas defence and they don't play until tonight. Put mostly my team was a steaming pile of stink.


I haven't actually looked at the fantasy points today either (the free live tracking ended after week one), but I can only imagine given that stats that I've seen so far for my players that I lost miserably in this week's match up.



Right at the top of my list of players who are making me rather grumpy is Braylon Edwards. Yes I now I did fairly well to get him in the first place but given that our teams are all stacked he's got to actually perform in order for me to do well. Okay so 32 yards is not terrible. It's almost double what he had in the last game but I'm still less than impressed.



This however, I am rather impressed with:


Oh and on a final note, the Colts just barely squeaked out a win yesterday. This whole season is looking kind of shaky.

Drew Brees is a stud

I say that now but it may not last. Welcome to my first post about my fantasy football team (many more to come I'm sure). My starting Quarterback is Drew Brees who I already kind of loved (as you can see he has his own label). He also put up some nice numbers this weekend leading my fantasy team to an absolute slaughter of my opponent. Next week I won't be so lucky but for now I'll take it. Oh and for those of you know don't know he plays for the New Orleans Saints who I will not jinx by wearing my Saints t-shirt during games.

Side note: Do you know how hard it is to find a decent picture of Drew Brees after you've deleted all of the pictures you had saved of him?

Election Sign Count

So the writ had been dropped and Canadians are going to be voting too. As you should be aware by now I love elections. They are usually exciting. During the last Federal election my city riding was won by 111 votes. My country riding was a freaking landslide. I've also moved since the last election so I will be voting in a different riding for different candidates on different issues. So many things in my life have changed since the last election that it may be difficult to decide which party to vote for.

But this isn't about me it's about how my neighbours will be voting come October 14th. The current neighbourhood sign count (based on my very scientific method of counting signs as I walk to and from work) is 2 Conservative, 1 Liberal.

Turns out I'm kind of a head case

So as you may have noticed it's been a while since I've posted anything. I guess I should apologize for that. The thing is I haven't really been stringing together enough coherent thoughts lately to make a post. Additionally the thoughts that I do have really aren't the sort of thing that I want to be putting in writing.

Oddly enough I'm not even really into sports these days. Last year I would have been all over both the U.S. Open which is this week. I don't even think that I've mentioned that Rafa is now the world number one. Oh and there is a Djokovic-Roddick match tonight that might be worth watching. I however will likely be watching the football game as NFL regular season starts tonight (look for my fantasy team post in the next couple of days).

I've also been having all sorts of crazy dreams. Like this morning when I dreamed that my bus stopped 2 stops before my regular morning stop and then turned around. This is of course completely ridiculous but whatever my dreams very rarely make sense.

Talking politics... kind of

Now I'm not a big follower of American politics but I always helps to stay informed of the direction of our Southern neighbour and largest trading partner. I find American politics confusing as hell, what with the primaries and delegates, super delegates, electoral college, I really have no idea who's winning or losing.

One thing I have noticed though it talking to both Americans and Canadians my age is that there is a definite Anti-Republican sentiment. Actually to put it slightly more accurately it is an Anti-Bush sentiment. I'm not surprised that my Canadian peers would support the Democrats because as one of my college friends said once the Democrats are more right wing than our most right wing party. I'm more surprised by people who support them blindly. I talked to someone the other day about Obama's speech at the convention (which I didn't watch because quite frankly I don't care enough), her favorite parts were the Bush-bashing. Which makes me wonder, do people even know WHY they don't like Bush?

I am a little surprised by the choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as the Republican Vice Presidential candidate. I also think it's kind of cool. Yeah I realize that's not the most descriptive of words but nothing that I've read so far about her makes me dislike her, which is more than I can say about most politicians. I'm also amused by other people's reaction to it. For example, I was talking to a young woman the other day about the selection and her reaction was "that was an interesting choice... what if she becomes pregnant, would she just take a mat leave?" In reality I'm less amused and more appalled by that statement, less because someone said it but more that it was someone who is well educated and career focused. But I guess it does make you think that if someone here is thinking that it's a safe bet that Americans are thinking the same thing.

As we get closer to an actual election and I start paying a little bit more attention I'll probably have more to say on the topic.

Cake for supper one day? Brilliant. 2 Days is a row? STUPID!

I think that title is self explanatory. It doesn't really help that I had left the two largest pieces of cake for today and ate the smaller one yesterday. It also doesn't help that I didn't feel so hot at the end of the day at work today either. Maybe I just need to sleep it off.

I should mention that this cake is pretty awesome. It's chocolate with chocolate icing and a layer of custard. But seriously if I even see another piece in the next week I'm going to hurl.

Did I just eat birthday cake for dinner and other random thoughts

The answer the the birthday cake query is YES! It's left over from the family thing and it's been sitting in my fridge for 2 days already. I was trying to hold out until my actual birthday tomorrow but it was calling to me.

Moving right along, I've downgraded (or upgraded perhaps) my most recent office crush to office hotness. You see old office hotness left us a couple of weeks ago for some other job and I hadn't replaced him. Also I think I've found a way to define office crush vs. office hotness. I think that an office crush would be someone who I could actually picture dating, whereas office hotness is someone who is incredibly attractive but I don't think I could actually talk to without turning to mush. Except to apologize for almost running into them coming around a corner, which actually happened.

I had a meeting with someone from the HR department at work. Sounds like there may be some things opening up so we'll see. I've also been doing further grad school research. I've settled on U of M (Minnesota) or U of M (Manitoba) with one other target school yet to be decided.

A sportsless weekend

Yes I realize that this was the last weekend of the Olympics and I probably should have been watching them but this weekend was reserved strictly for family stuff.

We didn't have a family Christmas last year because my cousin just had her baby and of course everyone has a bunch of family get togethers right around that time so we've replaced it with a summer get together. Surprisingly it was kind of fun. My family has never been particularly close given that some of my cousins lived far away and there is a pretty huge age gap in the cousins (20 years between the oldest and the youngest).

Anyway it was pretty cold and wet all weekend, except Sunday morning. We spent most of the time in my Aunt's house or on her patio, so by the end of the weekend I'd vowed never to have children. Speaking of vows my aunt just got married a couple of weeks ago so they did a wedding re-enactment for us because we couldn't be there. Not that it's her first wedding or anything.

We also did a family history version of the Amazing Race, which just proved what I already knew that my family is a bunch of liars, cheaters and a witch. Actually the witch part is my great-grandmother on my Grandpa's side and she wasn't exactly a witch but she did the herbs and potions thing. We also did a family history quiz, it was pretty bad.

But all in all a good time and they're already planning for next year.

Playing with the Big Boys

As you should be well aware by now I'm something of a sports nut (though granted not as much as I used to be). As a female sports fan I spend a lot of time talking sports with the boys at work and trying to prove that I know my stuff. I guess I did a pretty good job last year because they've invited me to join their fantasy football league this year. Either that or they just want to take my money.

Of course I've already lost $10 on football during the off season as I conceded that Brett Farve is un-retired, so I'm not really sure if it's worth it. Also I'm a little scared. I am historically very, very bad at sports pools and fantasy leagues. I spend so much time trying to perfect it and then doing absolutely horrible. It doesn't really help that guys either retire or get injured on me. Plus I'm not really into stats and all that, at least not anymore.

So here's the dilemma. If I don't play I'm never going to be invited to play again, but if I play I may undo all of the work I've done to prove myself as a sports fan in the last year. Really it's $10 and I shouldn't really care what these guys think but really I only see this ending badly for me.

Just to Cleanse the Palate

Alright as we can see from my previous posts I tend to be kind of single minded. But in honor of a certain co-worker's new shirt here is some Joe Maurer of the Minnesota Twins. Have I mentioned I hate baseball? But I like baseball players. Oh and he's 6'5 so he's both age and height appropriate.

Is there anything hotter than an athlete doing stuff with little kids. Yes, I realize that sounds really bad but you know what I meant.

One More Thought on the German gymnast

Okay before I give up on this topic completely I wanted to post these pictures which I found this morning. Not only does he have a pouty face but he also sticks out his tongue when he's concentrating which I find totally adorable.

Okay so now we can go back to not discussing gymnastics for another 4 years and then being plesantly suprised when we see him again in London. Oh also he's slightly balding as I noticed this morning, 21 year olds are not supposed to be going bald!

It must be some kind of illness

Who doesn't need a new office crush? That would be me. And yet a new one is developing. Not good. You would think after a while I would run out of people to have crushes on but apparently not. It's just a good thing I don't have to see him all the time because I always act a little bit silly around my crushes, especially in the beginning stages.

Back to my new Olympic crush on Fabian Hambuechen, besides being too young (21 in October) and too short (5'5) for me is also kind of pouty. I got up early this morning to watch the High Bar final in which he was the top qualifier. He was the first to compete and from the time he got off the bar he didn't look too happy. Kind of like in this picture which I borrowed from what could possibly be my new favorite blog (even though it is on hold at the moment), but with more pout.

Anyway he didn't fall off the bar this time so that's a good thing. He also ended up with the bronze medal so that's not so bad given his other 4th place finishes so far.

My love hate relationship with amateur sport

I'm a little bit ticked off after my day at work so I thought I'd go on a little rant to release at least some of my pent up anger.

Every couple of years motivated by the fact the Canada isn't winning so many medals at the Olympics people get the big idea that we should throw more money into amateur sports because we aren't winning enough medals. It's not that I don't support amateur athletics. I do truly love the Olympics. I also appreciate how hard these athletes work to be at the top of their sports. You hear stories about athletes who can't train as hard because they don't have the funding or some like David Ford even pay their own way to compete after they lose their funding. Sure we hear about things like Team Visa and RONA who pay to help a few athletes pay for their training but most don't really get that kind of help.

The thing is that as soon as someone says something like "we'd do better at the Olympics if we spent more money on amateur sport", I start thinking I already pay 1/3 of my annual salary to the government to pay for things like health care, the military, subsidized tuition and low income housing. All things that I feel are just a little bit more important that seeing someone with a medal hanging around their necks. The thing about spending tax money on anything thing is that the money has to come from somewhere, either something has to be cut or the citizens need to be taxed more.

I've also found that high performance athletes do actually receive a whole lot of extra little bonuses that the average person doesn't get either. Even if these are not professional athletes getting the big bucks for what most of them are able to receive at least some scholarship funding for college. Many of the large American schools even offer full scholarships for athletes (though granted most of these are for sports in which you can turn professional. But I came out of university with a piece of paper, a couple of letters to put behind my name and a whole lot of debt. Scholarship athletes could come out with the same things and a whole lot less debt.

I guess what I'm trying to say is not that these athletes shouldn't be rewarded for their dedication to their sport and their desire to compete for their country but I shouldn't be expected to foot the bill. Do I feel a tiny sense of pride when I see a Canadian up there on the podium? Sure I do. But I also work hard for my money and if I want to donate to sport of my own free will then I will but I'm not so sure it should be mandatory as part of my citizenship.

One more thing before I end my little rant. I realize that the Federal government as well as the Provincial government in BC have been and will continue to throw a whole lot of money into the Vancouver 2010 games and I'm not entirely sure I agree with that either but at least that is leading to changes such as improved infrastructure which will still be around (if done properly of course) long after all of the athletes that compete in 2010 are retired.

And end rant.

We have Medals

Yes I am aware this probably should have been posted about 2 days ago but I just didn't get around to it. So yes we have medals. The first ones were Women's Wrestling and rowing. I figured we'd get a couple of rowing medals and we did which is great because I like watching rowing.

I also watched 15 minutes of 8 guys swimming 30 laps of the pool to see Ryan Cochrane win a bronze medal. He's only 19 so he'll be back in 4 years. I've actually watched far more swimming than I have in quite some time given that I'm not the world's hugest swimming fan. I also missed Ian Thorpe hugging Michael Phelps' mom twice.


In non-Canadian medal news Rafael Nadal won gold in men's singles tennis, My favorite German male gymnast finished 4th in the floor final and the Jamaican women won first through 3rd in the 100m sprint.

I take it back

Yesterday I was talking about the Men's gymnastics competition and a certain German Gymnast who I discovered will not be 21 until October, which makes him just a little too young for me. This fact didn't stop me from staying up until almost 1 am to watch the men's all-around final though.

In case you weren't crazy enough to stay up to watch it Yang Wei of China won the gold medal. He was 2.6 points ahead of the silver medalist. The Canadians finished 15th and 17th which is pretty awesome given that it's the first time since 1992 that a Canadian has even been in the Men's all-around final. Hambuechen fell off the high bar which is apparently his best event even though both times that I've seen him on it at these Olympics he has fallen off the bar. But again he's cute so I'll look past it, though it does make me wonder about my power of jinx .

Oh yeah and since I'm on the subject of Olympics still no medals for Canada.

It's Olympics Time

Surprisingly I'm not so into the Olympics this year I blame it on Canada kind of sucking so far. Seriously win a medal already. I have however discovered my gymnastics crush a place that was previously unfilled until last night. I was watching the Men's team finals which Canada failed to qualify for. Fabien Hambuchen of Germany fell during his high bar routine which was kind of sad. But he's good looking so it's okay. He's also a favorite in the high bar apparatus final, which I will attempt to watch as long as it's not in the middle of the night.

By the way, Canada is still medal less.

More on my irrational hatred

As I have previously discussed I have some hate issues . New to the list of random people I hate is Michael Phelps. I'm sure he's actually a really nice guy but I could care less if he's going for 8 gold medals in Beijing. I'd like him to lose just one race so that the media can just shut up. I also wish that Ian Thorpe would come back. But that's a whole different issue. A brief side note on the Thorpe story because I found it while I was borrowing this picture of Phelps, apparently Thorpe is suing a French newspaper for saying that he took performance enhancing drugs.

The current object of my hate Michael Phelps. I think that maybe I'm just jealous

Random Thoughts to End My Vacation

Crap, I have to go back to work on Monday. Am I looking forward to it? Not at all. Not that my week off has been spectacular or anything what with the spending all sorts of money that I don't have yet (but hey at least work knows I have to come back), getting stopped at the US/Canada border on the way back, losing my 12 pack of Folklorama tickets at the very first show I went to, getting in a huge fight with my mom when I went home and having a terrible cold for the last 2 days and accomplishing pretty much nothing that I wanted to get done.

On the upside I bought a bunch of new stuff down in the States, dyed my hair (I looked better as a blonde), watched a whole season of Gossip Girl (still haven't decided if this is a good thing) and watched the Olympic opening ceremonies 3 times (well only part of it each time really).

Oh I also watched a little bit of the Disney Channel games. Yes it's a little embarrassing but after a week off I kind of ran out of stuff to watch and I certainly didn't feel like getting up off my couch today. But I've decided that the Jonas brothers are the Hanson of the younger generation. Geez, when did I become part of the older generation?

Taking my blog show on the road

So I'm on vacation this week. A much deserved one if I do say so myself. I was starting to feel just a little worn out. The first part of my vacation is being spent in the U.S. doing a little (and by that I mean a lot) of shopping with my brother.

The Border was just absolutely insane. Note to self: don't go to the States on a long weekend. We left pretty early in the morning, or at least early for 2 people who are supposed to be on vacation anyway. We hit the border around 9am. I can't imagine what it's going to be like coming back. I'm seriously considering staying an extra night just to avoid the traffic.

Anyway I'm already within $10 of my $400 duty-free dollars after one day.I did buy a fantastic pair of cowboy boots yesterday. Today we're hitting Albertville Outlets. I suspect it will be full of people and that more money will be spent.

I may not be posting much this week due to the vacation schedule of sleep until noon, in bed by ten. Gotta recharge that battery after all.

My guilty pleasures

Everyone has things that they do that they don't necessarily want to own up to. Things that if made public may ruin whatever sort of image they are trying to put forward. You can try to tell me that you're not grooming some sort of image but even if something seems to be your second nature there is still an image being created. For example my style when I'm just hanging out at home is much different than how I would dress for work. However I'm getting way off where I was going with this.

I have quite a few guilty pleasures. The first one is romance novels. Not just love stories but really cheesy, you-already-know-what's-going-to-happen-from-reading-the-first-page romance novels. The second is bad Canadian TV shows. I blame this on my upbringing of watching every episode of the original Degrassi ever made. Shows I watch on a weekly basis include Instant Star, Blood Ties and The Murdoch Mysteries. The last one in this quick list is ordering pizza so that I can talk to the cute delivery guy. I try not to do it very often because ordering out is expensive but it's especially nice after a long day when I probably wasn't going to cook anyway.

I haven't been feeling very bloggerly lately

The last couple of days at work have been just brutal. Although the shark documentary last night was absolutely awesome. There was so much stuff getting attacked. It helped me feel better. Also there have been a whole lot of documentaries about Germany during the Second World War (how can you tell I'm from Canada?) on the History Channel. I don't know why but that whole period of time in Europe as a whole fascinates me.

Let it slide

Sometimes I think I'm just a little bit too intense for my own good. I had a little chat with one of the guys that I work with today. Normally conversations with the boys at work have some sort of BPA-free reference or they make fun of this one uber-homophobic guy that I work with but occasionally we do have some serious conversations most of these happen more on a one-on-one basis. Anyway we were talking about how I really take things personally.

It's true. This combined with my constant over analysis of situations leads to many of my life problems. So I guess I'm going to try to take more of a let it go approach. I always say I'm going to try this and some how I end up slipping right back into my old patterns.

I almost forgot

Sunday marked yet another impressive win for Rafael Nadal . This time in Toronto which is about as close as I'll ever get to him. If he does well this week then he could be the new world number 1. Which would be awesome. Also I'm not so sure how Rafa manages to stand up straight carrying that much extra muscle on his left side.

At least I'm in training for the next two days

So you know how I'm constantly dealing with new work crushes even though the last one lasted pretty much a year? Well anyway, there is a new one. Actually I think I've probably mentioned this before. But anyone that I can convince to watch Shark Week deserves some crushing. Still unclear on his personal details but really that's not important.

But really this post in not about new office crush but old office crush. Yeah, yeah I know that's confusing too given that new office crush is actually 3rd office crush and old office crush could be used for either of the previous to the current office crush. And yes I'm babbling to avoid actually describing the dream I had about old office crush.

Right, so I had this strange dream about my workplace. For some reason we had a pool in our office, which doesn't sound so strange until you know that it's a swimming pool. There is definitely not a swimming pool in my work place. But anyways so for some reason old office crush and I were dating or something but hiding it, probably because at work relationships are usually a bad idea. But we weren't hiding it very well. Very strange dream. Especially since it was on a Saturday night which is usually my "there is no way I'm thinking about work tonight" night.

I am glad that I'm in training for the next couple of days which will help me to get over the internal awkwardness.

Things I thought today

There is no way to coherently write a post about the things that I'm going to say here and probably at this point I should just pack it in for the night but it seems way to early to go to bed. So I'm going to try to write this anyway.

Today was a ridiculous day at work. Why does everyone wait until the last minute to do everything? It's just weird timing for me I guess because I'm kind of between jobs at the moment. So there is lots of work to wrap up what I have been doing and lots of work to get caught up to where I need to be when I go back to my old job. a

I was thinking about something that H-Dot said to me last year when I was going through first office crush. She asked me what color his eyes were and at the time I couldn't tell her. I know now but I was applying that question to my current crush and again found that I couldn't answer. What does that say about me? Am I just not observant so I somehow missed it? Is it that I'm so into him that I have trouble looking him in the eye? Could you actually have a relationship with someone who I can't look at? Do I just not care about people's eyes? I'm thinking it's probably this last one.

The last thought I had was that I'm possibly the best sister ever. Tonight I had OB2 over for dinner and I made pie for desert. I made lasagna (though with ready to cook noodles and canned sauce). All after I got home from my rotten day at work. So I sent a bunch of food home with him.

In the Name of Diversification

Right now I'm having a hard time keeping myself upright. I just ate about half a bag of Tostitos and 2 cups of my fabulous Buffalo Chicken Dip. Okay so it's not really my Buffalo Chicken Dip. I found it last year while trying to kill a little time at work. A certain work mate of mine has a bad habit of sneaking up behind me when I'm looking for recipes and scaring the crap out of me.

Anyway here's a link to the recipe. For those of you who are slightly less domestic than myself don't worry it's really not that hard and this particular site has pictures to show you exactly what each step should look like.

My recommendations:
1. Go with the blue cheese dressing. Even if blue cheese isn't your thing, and it costs way more than Ranch because you can only get it in small sizes it's totally worth it. Seriously the first several times I made it with ranch dressing (because if I don't have ranch dressing in my house I probably just moved in) and it was totally awesome but tonight I splurged on the Blue Cheese and it was incredible.

2. Uses Tostitos or some comparable chip. While the site recommends celery, vegetables are just wrong on principle.

3. Go and buy yourself one of those Safeway pre-cooked chickens. It makes the whole shredded chicken process so much easier.

4. Use Jalapeno Havarti on top. Again it costs a little more but it's kind of worth it. Although to be perfectly honest you probably can't taste the difference due to the Frank's Red Hot sauce.

I'm Sorry, I'm Sorry, I'm Sorry

Thanks to whoever is out there actually reading my blog these days.

Just a quick note because I'm starting to notice a pattern here. I'm either writing posts to bitch or write about sports. I'll try to mix it up a bit from now on but I'm not making any promises.

Stupid People Make Me Angry

I need to start this by apologizing to KEG for being a horrible lunching partner today. I will try very very hard to be a better lunching partner tomorrow.

Now I will commence the bitching. Anyone who has ever even considered grad school is aware that unless you're planning to continue in the field in which you have your undergraduate degree (or degrees) you're going to have to take at least one pre-masters year to catch up on all of the courses that you didn't take in the first place. I had someone try to tell me that they were going to study in an Animal Science field when their first degree was in Agribusiness. Having taken some 3rd and 4th year animal science courses myself and considering either graduate work or a second degree in genetic research I was told in no uncertain terms that I would not qualify immediately for consideration for a Animal Sci masters and I would have to do at least one year of pre-masters work including Bio-Chemistry. The ensuing argument about the possibility of jumping from one field to another was kind of ridiculous.

Sure there are some graduate programs that you can sneak into with an agribusiness degree. An M.A. in Economics, yes. A MSc. in Business probably. But an MSc. in an actual science field pretty doubtful. Even for someone who has the first year Chemistry (which is not a requirement of an a BSc. in Agribusiness). Would have a hard time getting in without taking further Science courses as pre-requisites.

Oh right and complaining about a late shift when it's part of the job description for the position to which you applied plus the $45,000 starting wage does not endear you to anyone. Everyone has to take their turn on the late shift. That's just the way it is.

I apologize to anyone reading this who thinks it's about them. It probably isn't.

Is it Friday yet?

yeah I know it isn't Friday in fact it's only Sunday night but I have absolutely no desire to go to work tomorrow. I feel like I didn't get anything accomplished this weekend either even though it wasn't one of those relaxing do nothing kind of weekends. I always have this problem when I go out to the farm though.

It takes 4 hours to get there and back and it's not the world's most relaxing drive either. Plus my bed at home is really comfortable when you're actually in it but your back reminds you the next day that its not the most structurally sound bed. It's always nice to see the family though. Well except when you're arguing which always seems to happen with me and mom. Not that my mom and I aren't close but just that things always get a little heated right around the time I intend to leave.

On the plus side of going out to the farm I got to do all my laundry for free. Sure it cost me $60 to fill up my car but I saved $12 on laundry. So I'm going to call it even. So now to bed to prepare for yet another soul-crushing week at work.

Dream Diary Episode 4: More dreams about work.

In case you haven't noticed I obsess just a little over the whole work situation. Last night I had this very strange dream that I was being demoted at my work. Actually the situation was that I was being demoted but with a pay raise and there was a huge argument with my boss about how this was really the best situation for me because I was making more money.

The weird thing is that all of this happened while I was at a party on a boat with a bunch of people that went to my high school but were much younger than me. The boat was kind of like a cruise ship or something and it was more of a dance/ball than a party.

Logic: In the department where most of my work friends work there is a lot of speculation about a job shifts and promotions. Last week they did a whole bunch of interviews and people are still waiting to hear the results. The boat thing was probably because I was watching American Princess last night and they had a highland ball.

I'm glad I can actually use logic to figure this one out versus how these things normally work.

Not only am I a bad hockey fan I'm also a terrible person

I apparently have become and embittered old hag. At least 4 times in the last day I have used some combination of the following phrase to preface saying something truly terrible about good people:

"Okay this is going to sound horrible but..."
"don't get me wrong..."
"I'm going to be a horrible friend for saying this..."

How does someone at my age become so grouchy? I've really got to smarten up or I'm going to die bitter and alone. Well I'm already 2/3, I just hope that the dying doesn't happen for a while. Oh right I also said "well I can't be your friend anymore", but that was totally in jest and was understood as such.

No but seriously I think it's just exhaustion and frustration at the whole work situation. Tomorrow I will be doing 3 jobs because no one else knows how to do them. Which quite frankly is kind of sad given that I'm leaving my department in just over 2 weeks and that I've only been there for 8 months. It also makes you wonder what all of the permanent staff have been doing all these years. Granted it's holiday season but still. Additionally I'm not really seeing any hope for vertical movement from my current post but I'm not quite ready to jump to the next car on the career train just yet. So probably there will be much more complaining to come. I'll apologize in advance.

I am probably the worst hockey fan ever

Okay so this post title probably isn't particularly accurate there are much worse hockey fans but for someone who prides herself on knowing her stuff I think it's kind of pathetic that I'm only just now getting around to watching one of the only hockey movies out there.

About a year and a half ago I got the movie Miracle for Christmas. Somewhere between school, graduating, moving and stepping out into the real world I entirely forgot to watch it. It also doesn't help that it's glorifying American hockey and so watching it makes me feel just a little bit dirty. So in the dead of summer with all the "good" shows in re-runs and all the good sports in the off-season I felt it was about time I sit down and watch it.

Anyway I'm about a 1/3 of the way through and it's turning out to be not so bad which is surprising because I don't think I've actually seen a movie that I liked in the past 5 years. Well except the Lord of the Rings movies but that's because I'm super dork.

You'd think I could at least walk by now

At some point in the life of every twenty-something the phrase "and I fell down outside of the bar" has occasion to be used. I never thought my moment would be within 5 minutes of leaving work. Almost right across the street from where I work there is a bar. The thing is instead of stepping up onto the curb I kind of kicked it with my right foot and just fell down all over the sidewalk. I'm generally unscathed by this event just a tiny bit of sidewalk stuck to my elbow and knee and even my white pants didn't get dirty.

The Wild, Wild West: Part 1

Today is the final day of the Calgary Stampede. I love the Calgary Stampede Rodeo, I’ve only been once but I almost always watch the coverage on CBC. Someday I’ll probably make my way out there again. The other thing about me and rodeos is the cowboys. Put a pair of Wranglers and a cowboy hat on almost any guy and they’ll start looking good to me. However I’m not really the buckle bunny type. I tried that once it didn’t stick.

My favorite event is the calf roping, sorry tie-down roping because it’s the most useful in a real ranching/farming situation. This year they’ve dropped the 6 second rule at the Stampede. That means that after the calf is tied the calf doesn’t have stay down 6 seconds for the time to hold. That means that all of the times this year should be faster than any other year. The defending champion in the tie down just missed his calf so he’s now out of this evenings final. Now Josh Peek who had the fastest time this week also went out. As I’m watching this I’m realizing that most of these ropers are are from Texas. Monty Lewis also missed his calf. This is turning out to be pretty sad. Oh a 9.8 time for Stran Smith that’s brutal. Just a little slip of the rope and he lost a bunch of time.

On a little non-rodeo related side note: I just saw a commercial for the local 6 o’clock CBC news where they’ve poached both the anchor and the weatherman from the local CTV affiliate. Kind of sad.

Alright back to the rodeo. I hate the riding events. I think they’re ridiculous. You can never actually tell who’s going to win because it’s all based on points. The first bareback rider is Cimmaron Gerke, cute but who names their kid that? The second horse just didn’t want to get out of the gate. I can only imagine how that’ll ruin your ride. I guess we’ll see when he gets his 8 seconds and the ride is scored. 84 points, not real great. You wanna know how stupid cowboys are? The third rider, Ryan Gray hyper extended an ACL and an MCL and is riding today. Some people will say it’s brave I say it’s retarded. But I guess you only get one shot at this a year. It’s kind of like the Superbowl of rodeo, well except the World Championships. At least no one has been bucked off yet. Holy crap now there’s a 21 year old from Oklahoma, Justin McDaniel riding. That’s crazy for the Stampede because it’s a big deal, this guy must be good. Almost a buck off for Russ Halabee right about 6 seconds he’s hanging off the right side of the horse and he scored an 86. You see now why I hate the riding events? Dusty Lavalley got a re-ride and he made it into the final. Again riding events are crap. Don’t worry I’ll repeat this at least once for both the saddle broncs and the bull riding. The 86 was the top score.

Oh yay another semi-real event. Steer Wrestling. One of my big rodeo issues is the livestock. These are not good looking animals. But I guess they don’t have to. A 4.1 time is not bad for Curtis Cassidy from Alberta. I’m always cheering for the Canucks. The next rider has a 4.9 not good enough to get into the final. Wow a 3.8 for Wade Sumpter that’s nice. 3.9 for Sean Mulligan. You know the steer wrestling is possibly the most painful event, well as long as you stay on the bull/horse. But you have to basically throw yourself on the ground in the steer wrestling. I also like the time events more because it’s all about how good you are not about how someone judges you. Odd given that I used to figure skate and that’s 100 percent about how you’re judged.

This whole post got a little away from me so for the other events check out part 2, below.

The Wild, Wild West Part 2

There is the rest of this entry posted conviently in two parts to make reading it just a little less painful.

Now onto the Saddle Broncs. 82 points for the first rider. Wow that landing looked a little painful for Jeff Willert he kind of fell off the horse instead of jumping but he made his 8 seconds. Anthony Bello has an 86 so that 82 probably isn’t going to hold up. Wow this horse is sure jumping but didn’t really kick out so Cody Wright is going to be getting a re-ride. Wow this is the third South Dakotan of the 10 in the Saddle Broncs. And there was a buck-off. Actually the horse kind of fell down, could have been scary. These re-rides make the event seem to go on forever. Especially when it’s an event that you don’t like. Okay what’s with cowboys named Cody? Seriously it seems like there is at least one in each event here. So lowest score is 85.5.

Barrel racing is up next. Actually I think barrels is my least favorite event of all of the rodeo events. I’ve seen women fall off of their barrel horses and the horse will go ahead and finish the circuit. It makes me wonder then how much is actually the rider and how much of it is training the horse and could you hire a trainer to train the horse and then go ahead and win a bunch of barrel events? Don’t get me wrong obviously these women train hard and spend a lot of time with their horses but if you can buy a good barrel horse then you’re way more than half way to success. Oh here’s a barrel down for Lisa Lockhart, that’s 5 seconds added on to her time. So Tammy Key-Fischer had a 17.03 to qualify first for the finals.

And now for the marquee event of all rodeos the bull riding. Waste of a good bull if you ask me. So the first guy. Matt Bohon turned down a rodeo scholarship to ride on the PBR tour. First of all there are rodeo scholarships? Secondly this just proves my point about bull riders being stupid. Brian Canter scored an 85.5. Oh now they’re playing the Chicken Dance in the background, that’s exactly what you expect at a rodeo. Not. We have our first BO of the bulls, but at least Scott Schiffner got back up. Watching this I just can’t imagine that bull riding would be any fun. Although I guess I do a lot of things that people would never think are much fun either. And there’s another BO for Beau Hill. Oh I hope Tyler Thomson gets a re-ride ‘cause that sucked, the bull just stopped bucking. And the next bull just kind of got down on his front knees and that kind of ruined the whole ride for Wiley Petersen but the judges are calling it a BO. No re-rides were awarded so only 3 qualifiers.

I highly doubt I’m going to blog tonight’s finals but I hope you enjoyed my review of the qualifying round.

It's almost Olympics time

So Friday night I’m at home trying to find something to watch on TV. I watched about 2 seconds of a repeat episode of Friday Night Lights before I decided that I really needed to find something else to watch. The guide on my TV said that TSN was showing the Bombers vs. Lions game so I thought even though I’m not a CFL fan it’s probably preferable to say an episode of Friends or the Simpsons which I’ve probably seen or 6 times.

As it turns out because it’s a Bombers home game we’re in blackout territory, so no football game. In it’s place was E60 which I’m assuming is some sort of sports magazine type show. Anyway the first story was about a paralympic sprinter named Oscar Pistorius. He was a gold medalist at the Athens Paralympics and it turns out he might actually be good enough to compete with able bodied athletes except that the IAAF (the track governing body) has banned him because they say his prosthetics are considered technical aids and are therefore banned. The ban was over turned and he’s resumed full time training. At the moment he’s still a little short of making the Olympic standard in the 400m. I can’t help but think that having to fight the legal battle has probably hurt his qualifying efforts. For the record he’s also kind of cute. He's also only 21 so he might be able to qualify for the 2012 Olympics but that seems so far away and a lot can happen between now and then.

Oh and while I’m at it there is a South African swimmer Natalie Du Toit who will be competing in both the Olympics and the Paralympics. That’s pretty freaking awesome. It actually reminds me of another story that I heard during the 2006 winter Olympics about a Canadian Cross Country skier who had a degenerative eye condition and had started his career as a regular cross country skier but as his sight got worse he wasn’t allowed to compete with the able bodied athletes anymore.

If you want to read more about the sprinter’s story check out these links
http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-243-297--12492-0,00.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/15/sports/othersports/15runner.html
http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/trackandfield/news/story?id=3483741&campaign=rss&source=ESPNHeadlines

Goal of the Week

That's it I'm sick of giving myself unrealistic goals or at least ones that I know I'm only going to have to force myself to do. Like last week's goal . Seriously I kind of knew that I wasn't going to work on it. I was busy doing other things like running 2-a-day blog posts. Anyway so I'm only one seam closer to finishing which I guess leaves 2 seams and 3 hems to do.

This weeks goal is one that I'm probably going to finish tonight. I want to finish reading the third book in the Stephanie Myers Twilight series. Thanks to KEG* for suggesting these books to me. They're pretty good and not terribly heavy reading.

*This is the blog moniker I'm giving her because she refuses to come up with anything better for me to work with and I suspect I will need to mention her often

retraction

So apparently more people read this blog than I thought. I suppose this is a good thing and a bad thing. Anyway my friend that I lunched with yesterday confirmed that I was entirely wrong about her feelings about my office crush. So I apologize for not checking with her before I wrote that. But I don't apologize for thinking it. I'm entitled to my own opinion.

Today was the Big Reveal

As most of you know by now I have a secret office crush. The fact of the matter is that it's not all that secret but I've not said too much by way of identity to any of my other co-workers. However today I went for lunch with one of my co-workers and we had a nice little discussion about why I'm not willing to tell people that I like them. This of course meant that I had to tell her who it was in order for her to truly understand why I need to keep my mouth shut.

I've always believed that it's better to say what you're feeling than to keep it bottled up. Additionally as soon as I tell someone about my crushes they start to fade (it's a wonderful pattern). So why don't I feel better now that it's all out in the open?

I believe that the first reason is that she didn't seem over enthusiastic about the idea. Not to read too much into it or anything but I can't help but wonder if she doesn't have him kind of marked for herself. It would explain some things. Secondly now I've said it and we've discussed it I realize that there was really no reason for me to believe that he would ever feel anything for me anyway.

I'm actually more worried about the whole thing now that I've talked to her than I was when no one knew anything.

Since when do we get Around the Horn?

For about 2 years I have been downloading Around the Horn podcasts so that I can listen to them on my way to work. For the same amount of time I have been complaining about the fact that this show doesn't air in Canada.

As it turns out it is on in Canada. I don't know how long is has been going on but the other day when I turned on my TV there was Tony Reali and the rest of the gang doing their sports talkshow thing.

To be honest it's not the greatest show and I actually think I enjoyed the disembodies voices better but Reali is hot. I don't care if he just got married he's still hot.

You asked for it

In talking to my probably one and only reader these days it was decided that perhaps I should branch out and cover some other sports. I will very likely get to some very random sporting events come Olympic time however in the mean time I'll give her a little of what she wants.

I don't really care about swimming, except that there are boys in pretty much no clothes. But as my faithful reader's favorite sport I thought I'd better include just a little here. Here is a picture that I stole from Ladies... from the US Olympic swim trials. The beautiful dimples in the middle there is Ryan Lochte. Apparently he's an IM swimmer. I may have missed that the first 3 times I read that post.

1986 was a Good Year

On the heels of Rafa winning Wimbledon I’m reminded that ‘s only 22. This is a bit of a problem for me as my younger brother is also 22 making 22 my lower guy limit. However I’m also reminded that there are a whole lot of age-inappropriate hotties of this age. I’ve actually been meaning to write this for a while and just never really got around to it.

We’ll start with Rafael Nadal since he’s fresh on my mind. Okay so this is maybe not the best picture I’ve ever seen of him but he’s holding the Wimbledon championship trophy so that’s hot. He’s also a 4 time French Open champion and you’ll remember that the French is my favorite of all the majors.

Speaking of french here's another tennis player, Richard Gasquet. I'm not really sure what it is about him that I find attractive exactly but I think he's cute.

Moving on. Cam Barker of the Chicago Blackhawks. I always have a bit of an issue trying to remember how old these guys are come Christmas time when the Canadian Junior Hockey team is kicking butt. Anyway Cam is a good ol' Manitoba boy. He also played for the Medicine Hat Tigers in Junior. They were one of my favorite junior teams because I won a Medicine Hat Tigers ball cap from their website and they actually shipped it to me.

Calgary Flames goal prospect Matt Keetley. I'm not going to lie I had to do a smidgen of research for this one. I couldn't have more tennis players than hockey players in here. But apparently 1987 was the year for very attractive hockey players.

David McClure of the much hated Duke Blue Devils basketball team. I discovered him last year during the NCAA championships when I was doing hotness match ups. I don’t really have much else to say here. He looks way better in a suit. Oh he was my first College Basketball boyfriend.

Sergio Ramos, soccer player from Spain. This one I’m just a little bit conflicted on. I have seen pictures where he looks hot. But I have also seen pictures where I feel a little bit sick after looking at them and remembering that I thought he was hot. So I don’t know which way I’m leaning on this one.

I’m sure I’m missing a whole bunch of people. But these are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

As I’m writing this I’m also realizing that 1987 was maybe even a little better. I may have to get around to doing a similar post of this fashion for that year. Although I will feel a WHOLE lot creepier about it.

Living by myself can't be good for me.

As most of you know I have been roommate-less since March. Not only has this not been good for my pocketbook but it's starting to effect other part of my life. I've always been of the opinion that talking to yourself is necessarily a bad thing. Occasionally when I face a difficult problem I just need to talk it out. I used to just mumble under my breath and not really think much of it. No one heard and no one cared.

Lately I've been talking stuff out in my apartment at normal talking volume. This isn't so bad as still no one can hear me. But yesterday I caught myself doing it on the street while I was walking home. Additionally I've started saying things out loud that are best left in the deep recesses of my mind and not put out there for the general public.

The worst is when I do it at work. It's not good.

Hair

Well I got quite a few compliments on the new haircut. So I guess other people like it. I'm still unsure. I miss my long hair. As much as it annoyed the crap out of me when it started to get all tough and split at the ends I still liked be able to pull it back in a pony tail. Now it's too short for that and headbands annoy me so they'll be none of that. I suppose it could use some bobby pins to pull it back but it looks kind of funny at the back. I guess I just need to keep reminding myself that it's just hair.

Next on the agenda is getting it colored I haven't figured out quite what to do with it. I kind of wanted to go darker but the hair stylist told me that it's not such a great idea if you're not going to touch it up every couple of weeks otherwise it'll look like I have grey roots. I can't do anything too crazy with it either because it wouldn't go over so well at work, so there will be no green or blue or purple.

I think it'll depend on how I'm feeling the day I go in for my coloring. I can tell you right now I'm not going orange again. I've had enough of that for a while.

What a great day for Tennis

I don't even really know how to describe how amazing the Wimbledon Men's Final was.

Live Update: They're doing the trophy presentation as I'm writing this and they've just introduced Roger Federer as the Men's Runner-up. Which of course means that Nadal won. He's holding that trophy like it's a child. I think he's in love. He also looks like he's going to cry.

Nadal took the first 2 sets 6-4 and then Roger won the next two sets in tie breaks. Oh right there were a couple of rain delays in there too. It's very close to 9:30 in England at the moment and the match just ended. Nadal took the 5th set 9-7 .The game has been on since the time I got up this morning and it just finished.

So for the first time in five years I'm not pissed off that Federer won. I used to hate when he'd beat Andy Roddick (who was my first tennis boyfriend) and then later when he'd beat Nadal so today is a good day. It's so dark in England right now, they probably would have stopped to match after that game if Nadal hadn't won it.

Dude, John McEnroe just asked Federer for a hug. That's just a little BPA free. Oh and I love English with a horrible Spanish accent.

And The Shopping Spree Continues

As I mentioned yesterday I went a little spend crazy. Well I took the day off work today and gave my credit card a little bit of work out. It started off fairly normally I got my hair cut. It's super short now. Well super short for me anyway. I didn't get it colored or anything, I'm leaving that for my August holidays. But still a decent cut costs some coin.

Then I went to the mall to get my glasses fixed, or at least that what I told myself when I went. The first store I visited was the Body Shop. I have a bit of a problem with that store I can't just walk by it I have to go in and of course as soon as I walk in I get the urge to spend money. So two body butters (bringing my current total to 6) and two home fragrance oils (total too many to count) later I was relieved of another 50 bucks. Then too the bookstore where I bought 3 new books (it's not like I have a distance ed course I should be working on or anything). To end my trip I did get my glasses fixed and paid my Sear bill. I also stopped in at SportCheck so see what they had left over from Euro. The answer is Greece, England and Germany. I guess no one likes a loser.

Within 5 minutes of my returning home my mom showed up at my apartment. I kind of knew she was coming into the city but I didn't actually expect her to stop and visit. Anyway it wasn't much of a visit as she was really tired and so she napped in the spare room. Then we went to the Olive Garden for dinner, which is my absolute favorite restaurant of all time but just a little pricey. Oh well I guess that means I'm going to have to be a shut in for the rest of the weekend so that I don't spend anymore.

Goal of the Week

So I haven't done a goal of the week in quite some time. This is mostly because I was in give up and do nothing phase. I have this problem with goals. When I set a goal I have every intention of achieving that goal. When I do it's not so much an accomplishment as it is an expectation, when I don't achieve my goal I tend to berate myself. So in some way doing a goal of the week is actually more likely to be a knock against my self confidence rather than a boost to it. That said let's move on to my new goal.

Oh and normally I do this on a Friday night but I'm doing it today because I have the day off tomorrow so it's the start of my weekend now. Okay NOW we can move on to my goal of the week. This week I intend to finish sewing the dress I started way back in February. I've only got the sleeves and the bottom hem to do and then it's done. The secondary goal is to buy a digital camera so that I can post a picture of the finished product.

As for the previous goal of the week I do intend to get my glasses fixed this week. Finally.

The Shopping Spree

Normally I'm not a very fun shopper. I'm a get in, get out girl. I hate browsing. But every once in a while I have to remind myself why I force myself to go to work everyday. Sure I just bought a laptop, and yes I'm planning a trip to Scotland next summer but in the meantime it can't be all work and no play.

So today as the beginning of a long weekend of me watching tennis I decided to treat myself a little. I tried on a lot of clothes and only came out with a little and a couple of pairs of shoes. Did I need any of this stuff? Absolutely not. Did it get me out of the apartment for a while that wasn't going to work? Yes.

I didn't actually spend that much money. I know some girls who own purses that cost more than what I spent, but for me it's a big deal because it was really on a whim. I had no intention of going shopping tonight but I looked at my clock at around 6 and said "holy crap it's only 6, I need to do something". And a shopping spree was born. Oh I also had a little excursion when I missed my turnoff and got a little lost. But even that was relaxing.

Dream Diary Episode 3 - And I thought that last time was messed up

Okay there is something obviously wrong with me. Last night I had the craziest dream. Actually I don't really remember much about it except that it wasn't in English.

For the record I DO NOT speak any other languages. I took a little french in high school but living in the French part of the city now I've learned just how little French I know. I also attempted to learn Czech once, didn't get very far with that one. So there is no reason for me to dream in any other language. In a "let's think about this logically" kind of way I suppose it may be because I've been watching a lot of YouTube videos in Spanish, due to my little crush of Fernando Torres. But it's not like I've understood any of it.

As we learned in this post my crazy dreams come in pairs. So the second one is even more inexplicable in the "where the hell did that come from" kind of way. The dream was set at the NHL draft, which was only a couple of weeks ago so that might make sense. The thing about the Draft is that it's a bunch of 18 year olds and yes when I was younger I used to love watching the draft. However now that I'm getting older and 18 is out of my age range I find it just a little creepy and a list of which teams drafted who is sufficient. Other weird parts of the dream include that the number 1 draft pick was from Switzerland. Which has never happened. In fact there aren't all that many Swiss players to begin with. Secondly, the guy was hot. And thirdly instead of kissing his mom, dad, siblings and girlfriend when his name was called, he was at the draft with his boyfriend. Which again to the best of my knowledge has never happened.

It's Like a Part of Me Died

Of all of the teams that my favorite player could have signed with it had to be the team that tops my most despised list. Today was the first day of NHL free agency, and also very likely the end of the Ottawa Senators as my favorite team. Wade Redden signed with the New York Rangers for 6 years at $6.5 million per season. I have been in love with Wade Redden forever, with someone stalker-ish results. When I was in Grade 11 I wrote an essay about Wade Redden for an English class, for the record this is the most creepy thing I have ever done in relation to a professional athlete and I'd like to think that he would be somewhat flattered rather than entirely creeped out but really I was in high school. I also wrote one about Ian Thorpe for the 2000 Olympics but not the point here.

So now I'm torn, do I stick with the Sens or abandon ship and go with someone else? I won't ever be a Rangers fan but the Oilers are still pretty high up there for me. Granted I've been a horrible hockey fan as of late so maybe this shouldn't really matter to me but it still does. Gah! I'm so angry. What are the 5 stages of grieving again? Anger, denial... CRAP!

But let's throw in a picture of Wade in a Sens jersey for old times sake.

What to do with a day off

Today is Canada Day. Which means that we all have the day off work. I probably should be much more excited about my country I can't say that I'm particularly patriotic. Obviously there are some wonderful things about living in Canada: democracy, "free" health care, government support for post secondary education. I'm not however taking part in any of the Canada Day festivities save for walking to the end of my street to get a good view of the fireworks later tonight.

You would think that with all the complaining I do about work I would be ecstatic with a day off but not so much.

So then what did I accomplish on my nearly mid-week day off from work? Not a whole hell of a lot. I didn't get up until about 9 this morning, which was wonderful as I couldn't sleep last night and ended up staying up past midnight (which is late for me). I didn't shower until nearly noon. Then I made the mistake of going out for coffee. After watching soccer for the past couple of weeks I've decided that I should probably start doing some regular physical activity, so I figured I'd walk to the Robin's that's about 3 blocks from here. No big deal except that it's freaking hot(25 Celsius) and my hair was still wet from my shower. So the water in my hair got all warm and well I'm sure you've all had the experience of doing some sort of physical activity right after showering.

Pretty much immediately when I got back home I realized that I don't have any milk and of course Safeway is closed. I watched some TV and a couple of episodes of Scrubs that I had downloaded and pissed around on the internet until about 4 when I ventured out the 7-11 for my milk. Followed by more pissing around on the internet which leads me to this exact moment in time.

reconnecting

I have several times wondered about the creepiness of the Internet. Sure the Internet is great for keeping in touch over long distances but at the same time people are able to find things about you and you may not even have existed. Take a second to check yourself in the Google search and you'll see what I mean. For example there is definitely a horrible picture of me from a tour that I did with and old job. I can't really get rid of it but it's certainly not something I would have posted myself.

It also comes up with some profiles of people I am connected to on Facebook. Which is also kind of scary. I realize that you should never post anything about yourself that you wouldn't be comfortable with a stranger knowing. I've generally stuck to that rule, but a the same time it's difficult to control what other people to in relation to your profile. I've threatened a couple of times to remove my facebook profile, more and more as people who were in elementary school when I graduated have joined.

But the Internet has also been a wonder tool for reconnecting with people I haven't talked to in forever. For example I had a good friend in high school who was a couple of years older than I was. She moved on and then I did and we've never reconnected until last week. To put the timeline in perspective I remember discussing how hot I thought Jensen Ackles was back when he used to be on Days of Our Lives. So I guess Facebook isn't entirely evil.

Music Memory

So recently I've been listening to music that can only be described as crap. Absolute crap. So why would I listen to crappy music? Because it reminds me of other things. I'm sure everyone has songs that they associate with other thoughts, feelings, people, ect.

For example everytime I hear Calling Baton Rouge by Garth Brooks, I think of my College Graduation. It was the last song played at the social and everyone that was left there got up and danced. Similarly another Garth Brooks song makes me think of my high school graduation because it's the song we all walked into.

Some songs you don't even know remind you of anything until you actually hear the song again. There is a song that isn't often played on the radio anymore that reminds me of riding in the tractor with my older brother. I can't really remember what song it is but if I heard it I'd know right away.

I don't know if this can be an excuse for poor taste in music but it's what I'm going with for now. I just hope no one digging through my iPod with question my legitimate taste in music as a result.

I'm going to try to keep a list of songs that remind me of other things in the comments (we'll see how long this lasts). You can too if you want

You know I'm actually kind of sad that it's over

As has been discussed a length as of late I'm not actually a soccer fan. However I have watched an awful lot of soccer in the past two weeks. I'd like to blame it on there not being any sports to watch, but that's not exactly true either. Anyway now that Spain has won Euro2008 and everyone in the soccer world is looking forward to World Cup 2010 in South Africa, I turn my attention back to where it should have been for the last week anyway. Wimbledon.

Some things of note at Wimbledon. As discussed here Novak Djokovic lost to Marat Safin in an early round match which makes my taking next Friday off work so that I could watch the men's semi's kind of useless, though granted Rafael Nadal is still on course to be there. Andy Roddick surprisingly (well to me anyway) went out earlier this week as well. Oh and Mario Ancic is still hanging around, that's cool.

The women's side isn't looking much better. Ana Ivanovic the number one player in the world and Wimbledon number 1 seed got the boot, along with Maria Sharapova. So chances are a Williams if going to win again this year.

A couple more sports notes while I'm on the subject. I've noticed lately that I'm not quite the sports fan that I used to be. To be a true fan you have to follow a team and know the stats and standings. I don't know if it's just that I've lost interest in that sort of thing or that I don't really have time for it anymore but it's not something that I do. Yes I still watch a lot of sports but now I find that I enjoy just watching the game that I'm watching and not really worrying about what came before. Perhaps that's why I was able to pick up on this soccer thing and actually enjoy it (very attractive men didn't hurt either). It didn't really matter to me who won that last time or who was the favorite to win.

Never going to even suggest that I fake sick ever again

So some of you will know (because I have yet to stop talking about it today) that the Russia-Spain Semi-final was yesterday. The day before yesterday I was joking about faking sick so that I could stay home and watch the game because I had a horrible time trying to find a good Internet feed for the first semi. As it turned out I was home to watch the game yesterday but I really was sick and missed large chunks of the game.

Not that I can actually evaluate this but as far as I can tell Spain looked pretty darn good during that game. Now if only they can beat Germany in the final. And now for the fun stuff. I don't know if you guys have noticed but I've kind of become a fan of Fernando Torres. Me and every other female soccer fan who likes tall blondes with chiseled jaws and rock hard abs. Some people have issues with his hair, personally I just want to run my fingers through it.

I wonder if it's my fault

I am one of those people who believes that the things that I do affect other things. For example last year during the NHL playoffs I fell asleep watching a Senators game. The Sens were ahead when I fell asleep and as soon as I woke up the Penguins scored. I fell asleep again during intermission and when I woke up the Senators had gotten ahead again and then 1 minutes later the Penguins scored again. The Senators lost the game and I blame myself.

On Tuesday I wrote this post about changing my computer desktop. And wouldn't you know Novak Djokovic lost in straight sets to Marat Safin at Wimbledon yesterday. While it seems like the two things are completely unrelated I can't help but feel somewhat responsible for the loss.

People with no common sense

With a title like that you really have to be expecting another one of my rants coming on. If you're not then you probably just wandered upon this site at random and so to you I apologize. To anyone who actually followed some sort of link to get here come on you should know me well enough by now.

Okay so the last couple of days I've been really bother by really stupid people and the really stupid things that they've been doing. Let us start with my neighbours who are either running grow-ops out of their apartments or haven't realized that A) they have air conditioners and b) it's hotter outside than it is in their apartments. I've come home from work for the past 2 days around 4:30 to find both my upstairs and downstairs neighbour's windows open, which of course heats up MY apartment. Guys seriously it's 26 degrees outside there is nothing you can be doing in your apartment aside from cooking a 12 course meal this is going to make it hotter in there than outside. No fucking common sense.

Situation number 2 has to do with a certain future brain surgeon that I work with. Or at least she would be if she knew what the words appendages and electrolytes meant. Thank god she's a summer student, hopefully that means she'll learn something in the next couple of years. No but really are people that stupid? She can't really be pretending can she? Man I don't even want to think about what that means for the education system in this province that this girl has a high school diploma.

Reminder to myself that change is good

I don't like change. I never have. When I was 9 my parents got a new dining room set and I cried. I've obviously learned to deal with change a little bit better than that. I've moved away from home to go to school, I've lived in 3 different homes in the last 5 years and I've started a career in my chosen field (I think, but that's a story for another time).

One thing that has been constant for nearly 2 years is my computer desktop background it has been the same picture of Novak Djokovic since about December of 2006. Last night a changed it to a Spanish soccer player. Obviously I'm going insane and I hope that once this Euro thing is over I can go back to being normal again. Or at least a normal as I was before. However given my aversion to changing my desktop I probably won't be changing this one for a while either.

For the record my work desktop is Conner Atchley of the Texas Longhorns basketball team and my laptop background is one of the windows backgrounds, which I will likely change now that I've set up my laptop for internet.

The waiting game

I'm the kind of girl who likes to do things on her own. Always have been. All through high school (and junior high and elementary for that matter) I was the kind of person who wanted to do group work on their own. Partly because I was kind of a loner (oh surprise, surprise) and partly because I thought I could do a better job if I did everything myself than if anyone helped me. Truth be told this actually worked out really well for me in school because well quite frankly I wanted to work harder than most of the other people I went to school with, I had more desire to do well in school. Another reason this worked so well was that the only consequence of my work was my grade.

Now that I'm in the real world that changes. I can no longer be responsible for everything and really my results don't matter. This means that it is necessary to work as part of a team and I think I've adapted well to that. What I haven't adapted well to is the waiting. For example I'm currently waiting for 3 different people to send me 3 different things so that can complete my work. My biggest fear is that they're all going to come at the same time and that I'm going to be absolutely swamped by the volume of work to be completed. I guess that's why they say patience is a virtue.

I'm going to be so useless today

First and foremost let me apologize for being a terrible blogger as of late. I promised one of my favorite co-workers who is off sick for the next little while (actually starting about a week and a half ago) that I would update my blog more frequently in her absence and not less. Oops.

But here's my problem. I don't know how many of you have seen me in the beginning stages of a crush. I'm not going to go into details because it's pretty ugly but I basically wrap myself into this little fantasy world where everything is connected to the current crush. I get so entirely distracted that I have difficulty concentrating and am constantly distracted.

Take this morning for example. I went into Starbucks like I normally do but I didn't realize until I was halfway between Starbucks and work that they had only made a regular instead of my usual double. First of all I usually watch the Baristas fairly closely to make sure that they don't screw it up. Secondly I can't believe it took me so long to realize that something was wrong.

Anyway so that's the excuse that I'm running with for not posting more. I'll try to pass some of my focus on to something else and perhaps get another post in sometime today.

Euro 2008: Germany

As is often the case when I decided to do something like this I'm both getting bored and feeling pressured to finish before it becomes irrelevant. As a result I'm becoming more strict about what I'm going to post in terms of hotness. If it's even semi-questionable it's not going in.

Piotr Trochowski

Arne Friedrich

The more things change the more they stay the same

As some of you know I made my way back home this past weekend for the local fair, in conjunction with Father's Day. I remember fairs of my youth being exciting and entertaining (and a lot of work), this one was none of that.

It's not that I expected my town to have changed much but I expected some changes. Sure the largest employer has moved from farming and agriculture to construction. Yes, they did build a daycare on to the high school (don't act so surprised!). But other than that not much has changed.

I thought going back I might catch up with the few high school friends I hadn't already found on Facebook. As it turns out anyone worth talking to from my high school days has moved on to bigger and better things. The people who are still around from my high school days are still exactly the same, a little bit older and with a few more kids but otherwise exactly the same. There is even that one guy who refuses to believe that he's too old to be hitting on high school girls, like Wooderson in Dazed and Confused.

Yup, small town living. Hard to believe I long for that lifestyle again. But despite all the bad stuff there is something to be said about being able to go and visit your neighbours for coffee at random and not having to be suspicious of every stranger you meet on the street.

Euro 2008: Italy

Alessandro Del Piero

Andrea Barzagli

Simone Perrotta