mike the mountain

What did you think I meant?

- e e cummings

It’s amazing how much I wasn’t doing at my old job. I’m embarrassed to admit it, purely out of professional pride, but man, was I ever checked out at that dump. I mean, it was no surprise that I was totally unmotivated, but I didn’t realize just how good I was at finding other things to do until I came here and actually started spending my time… you know… WORKING!

This is a good thing of course, but once in a while I do miss the whole “I’m going to spend my entire work day surfing for interesting links to put up on my blog” thing I had going. I do still give myself the occasional break to flip through my RSS feeds (gotta make sure I stay up to date with Wil and Joey and the AICN crew), and of course I can’t get through my day without a healthy BoingBoing and Fark fix. I realized this week that I hadn’t checked out Lifehacker in a while, and true to their productivity preaching, they had a LOT of ways to improve pretty much everything I do in life.

Managed to get up to date again (for now anyway), below I’ve posted a few gems for future application/reference. Along with a few pictures of 2 of my favourite cities. You can probably guess.

So I turned 11101 this month… actually on the day we arrived in the City of Champions. Knowing that I was going to be on the road for Mike Day, that amazing girlfriend of mine actually packed a whole bunch of amazing and thoughtful presents (including Lord of the Freakin’ Rings Special Extended Edition Trilogy!!). So even though Mike Day started with me and Dreamgirl in a hotel room in Regina, -47 degrees Celsius out, and 8 hours of snow-covered highways ahead of us, it was one of the best birthdays I’ve ever had.

Thanks babe.

Oh yeah, not only that, but with all the rush around our packing up and leaving Ontario in such short notice, I was getting a little worried that I wasn’t going to be able to say goodbye to my Toronto buddies (Hey JP, Lisa, Bill, Lewis, Andy, Heather, Hercules, Ian, Sean, Steve, Brenda… anyone else I forgot about). So what does my little honey do? Suggest we go out for a bite of dinner at one of my favourite restaurants in Waterloo, and there’s a bunch of my best friends sitting around a table with balloons, pirate hats, and noisemakers! A full on, no kidding, good ol’ fashioned surprise birthday/going-away party! I’ve never had anyone do that for me before, and I’ve never been so totally caught by surprise in my life.

Thanks again babe.

What a woman!

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Downtown Tokyo

“Last Morning”
by Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show

This is the last mornin’ that I wake up in this dirty city
Looking for the sunshine as the buildings block the skies
This is the last mornin’ that I wash in rusty water
Tryin’ to shave a face that I don’t even recognise

Down the hallway rats are skitterin’
I can smell the garbage rottin’
Hear the children cryin’ in an apartment down below
This is the last mornin’, that I’m gonna have to listen to it
I’m going home, yeah

This is the last mornin’, that I try to breath the heavy air
Fight the crowds, avoid the traffic, watch the world turn grey
This is the last mornin’ that I drink my coffee standing up
Smile and speak to strangers who just turn and walk away

This is a tough cold city here
And I’ll guess I’ll never cut it here
And I’m so tired of tryin’ to stand against it all alone
This is the last mornin’, that I’m gonna have to fight it
I’m going home, yeah

This is the last mornin’ that I wear these greasy overalls
Punch the clock and do just what I’m told to get along
And face the long evenin’, layin’ close beside my radio
Imaginin’ the kisses of the girl that sings the song

Down below the subway’s screaming
As I lay here halfway dreaming
Looking at the ceiling, wondering where, the dream went wrong (where, where)
This is the last mornin’, that I’m gonna have to think about it
I’m going home

I’m going home
I’m going home
I’m going home

Halloween, baby. Definitely my favourite excuse to dress up funny and harass strangers into giving you candy.

Thought this year was going to be a bust… Dreamgirl and I were signed up for some all day fundraiser with my office on Saturday (aka: grownup Halloween party day), and we figured we’d be dead by the evening and not really in the mood to drive an hour into Toronto to hit the big club scene. So be it, we’ll still hand out candy on Tuesday, and maybe just find a local bar to pop into.

Then salvation!

On Friday I got the call that every other member of our team had dropped out due to various illnesses, prior commitments, [insert excuse here]‘s, so we were free! Gee, I bet it’ll be easy to find costumes Friday evening of Halloween party weekend…

No worries, after surfing a few options we hit Hollywood Costumes up in Thornhill. Packed, but still a decent selection left. Chrystal found an AMAZING ghostly-spirit costume, all flowing white lace and gossamer. And just to match, I grabbed a wicked looking LOTR Ringwraith costume, all black, ripped and shredded and making a perfect match to the angel beside me.

If only it was that easy.

We figure we’re set for Saturday, have to pick up a couple extra accessories during the day, and then head to town for the big club crawl. I snagged us the last couple tickets for a great sounding event through Party Crawls. Should be a blast. Of course as soon as we get home we rip open our costume bags to try them on… Chrystal looks awesome, just needs some white face paint, stockings, etc.. I, on the other hand, pull on a black stocking with couple strips of mesh. It looks like crap. We try to twist and adjust it, stare at the pic on the bag, eventually we had to accept it. Half the costume was missing. All I had was the plain black piece that is to be worn underneath the big scary gothic cloak and hood. Useless.

Now I’m mad. Not only do I not have a costume, but I’m going to have to try and return the one I did buy after the big party weekend… I’m sure no one has ever tried to run that scam before. “Uhh, yeah, I know it looks like I wore it, and it smells like beer, but seriously it didn’t, uh, fit. Yeah. Can I have my money back?”

Oh yeah, and I still need to find something to wear for Saturday night.

No problem. Hit teh interwebs, grab a list of every costume shop in 50K, and first thing Saturday morning (relative concept when you get up at 5:30am all week), we’re on the road. Not a ton left. Big surprise. Finally get to one of the coolest costume shops I’ve ever seen: Seams Like Magic, in Waterloo. And there it is. Sitting right at eye level (for me anyways), front of the rack. Calling to me. The perfect costume.

Two words.

Zombie.

Cowboy.

Hell yeah! Now I’m REALLY excited. Grabbed a few accessories (bandito ‘stache, grey hairspray, “Severe Wound” makeup, bullet belt), headed over to Winners to grab a suitably cowboyish shirt that I wouldn’t feel too bad about ruining, stopped by a mall to grab some white fishnets and white Crocs for Dreamgirl’s costume, and we are ready to rock.

The party started out really well, awesome first bar, great mix of crowd, some amazing costumes (we took 3rd place, behind two guys dressed as Duff Beer bottles and a very uncomfortable looking “Horse From Brokeback Mountain”!). Unfortunately, as the night went on it became very apparent that this was not our scene. Each bar we went to got younger and younger, and neither of us really enjoyed being stuffed into an overcrowded bar full of drunk 19 year olds. Been there, done that, we were hoping for something a little more mellow. After almost getting in fights at two different clubs (someone tried to get “physical” with my Dreamgirl, so I got “physical” with him), we called it a night.

Even though it didn’t end on the best note, overall I still had a fun time. If you are in the mood to really rip it up and go crazy, I definitely recommend Party Crawls. Great group of guys, well organized, obviously having a ton of fun. Thanks again Mike!

Now where’s my candy…

~~~~~

My dear friend Joey deVilla (aka: Accordian Guy) is having some fun at the moment with a little Googlebombing campaign against his deadbeat ex-housemate. A local news broadcast even picked up his story (link).

There’s nothing worse than having someone you thought of as a friend screw you out of money (I’ll tell you a story about a golf tournament one day), and I think that Joey’s response is hysterical and awesome and geeky in all the right ways. So in honour of Mr. deVilla, I thought I’d add my meager juice to the campaign. Good luck bro!

deadbeat ex-housemate
deadbeat ex-housemate
deadbeat ex-housemate

So because of various firewall restrictions at work, the only chat protocol I’ve found that I can use is Skype. MSN, Google, AIM, ICQ… all of them are blocked, but Skype goes through. Must use a different port or something, I don’t ask why I’m just glad I have a way to stay in contact. And it’s nice to use it to record phone calls on occasion!

Dreamgirl started her new job this week, and so I feel she needs a new Skype icon. Here’s a bunch I cropped out for her from a few recent vacations… I probably could have just sent them to her so she could choose herself, but how can I deprive the world of such beauty??

Oh, just for the record, here’s my icon:

Ed. – hmph. She made me take out a few pics… Oh well, there’s still enough hotness to go around!