blues brothers 2000

My neighbourhood is overrun by movie companies this weekend; production trucks are everywhere. Blues Brothers 2000 (with Dan Ackroyd and John Goodman) is filming across the road. A Cool Dry Place (20th Century Fox film, not sure who stars in it) is filming in the apartment next to us. Going to look for a PalmPilot today...I have officially lost control over the amount of info I have scribbled down on post-it notes and scraps of papers and various notebooks which may or may not be on my person on any given time. A PalmPilot is sort of an electronic notebook, small enough to carry around in my pocket or purse. Today's site is really a selfish resource for my own use:
The Pilot Page.

active surplus

Went to a hardware store yesterday called Active Surplus. Anyone familiar with the Queen St. E. area in downtown Toronto will be familiar with this odds-and-ends shop stuffed full of knobs and wires and electronic bits (at present, it's the one with the life-size gorilla figure in front of the store, wearing a rain poncho). I'm not nearly keen about hardware shops as I am about office supply stores, but the two do share a similar appeal for packrats like me...there is just so much cool STUFF, all kinds of interesting items of the "If only I needed one of these!" variety. Most of the store content is typical hardware paraphernalia, but the bins along the main store aisle near the entrance could contain *anything*. Yesterday, items included cardboard Elvises, clock faces, rain ponchos (the kind the gorilla in front wears), square pieces of glass, coloured beads, paperweights, mirrors, and a tub of something called "HaveTaGo" (a disposable, portable toilet!!). Yesterday was also my wedding anniversary (six years!); Jeff and I went for brunch at Movenpick's on York St, then strolled along Queen St W. Re: PalmPilot stuff - I am super-happy with my new PalmPilot! I've already transferred all my addresses and calendarstuff and post-it notes to this small notepad. Site of the day: Excite - my current favourite search engine. I like the feature that enables you to see by website (so you don't have to plow through a ton of listings from the same website).

parsley

My parsley sprouted! I am so pleased...this means that my whole herb box is actually flourishing. We'll see if they survive until Sunday without water, though...I'm going to New York for the weekend. Went to Ragtime last night and loooooooooooooooooved it! Best live musical I've seen, ever.
Site of the Day: The Rosie O'Donnell Show. A bit heavy on the graphics, but fun for Rosie fans (hi Allison).

warcraft

Last night, Jeff invited over a bunch of our friends for a "Warcraft" fest. Warcraft, in case some of you didn't know, is a computer game in which you basically build towns, build up firepower, then go out and get rid of everyone else in order to win. I've never been a big fan of the game. Jeff and I tried playing when he first got addicted to the game, and I actually did enjoy cultivating my farms and churches...but I always tended to get upset whenever Jeff's nasty knights and ballistas charged over the neighbouring hill and stomped my poor peasants into the fields. Jeff gently pointed out that the game was called "Warcraft", not "Nurturecraft", and I reluctantly conceded that perhaps this type of game was not for me. I gave it another go last night just for the social aspect, this time concentrating on building up defenses and shoring up my cannon towers in a little corner instead of going after other people. It worked all right at first, but I always got smushed in the end by enemy mages who turned all my peasants into sheep or called down devastating icestorms. The one person who was nice to my town was Michael Cecutti (7 year old son of a friend of mine), but I suspect that was only because he couldn't find it. Today's Site is: The Universal Currency Converter. Sounds dull, but I've already used this site quite a bit. Besides, where else would you find out that ten bucks Canadian exchanges for 24.90 Polish zloty??? [ 2:58 PM ] The hallway outside our apartment is packed with film equipment and people right now. Found out that the name of film is "A Cool, Dry Place" (not the most inspired movie title, is it?) and stars Vince Vaughn, who was in the Jurassic Park sequel.

garbageman's daughter

Sick today, ugh. Jeff seems to have caught some bug, too. Didn't see Vince Vaughn yesterday, but was impressed by the number of people that could crowd into our little hallway. The crew had lined the walls with thick cardboard and the floors with an extra layer of carpet in order to avoid damaging anything when equipment was moved. I almost felt like a celebrity myself whenever I used the elevator, other tenants excitedly asking me what was happening, had I met any stars yet, and so on. Read a great story yesterday called "The Garbageman's Daughter" by David James Duncan, from a collection of stories called River Teeth (thanks to Rand for lending this to me)...now I'm very keen on getting my own copy of the book. Checked amazon.com but found out the book was out of print and supposedly difficult to find. Of course I consider this a challenge, and am determined to get hold of a copy before Christmas. I downloaded a tamagotchi clone for my Mac yesterday and tried it out for a few minutes...unfortunately the novelty has long since worn off for me, even with an extra feature where I can set up an "autofeeder". To Anne: some Englishman is keeping 55 tamagotchis alive?!!! I swear I would go stark raving mad! To Lissa: yes, I definitely must update the UT comic...maybe I'll do that later today. Any ideas, anyone? Sea Monkey update: there are only six (6) left!!!!! And Sigmund looks worried these days. To Phil: I was eating my lunch when I read your terrible puns, and nearly choked on my chicken. I am trying out various log stats program. You can check out my stats for the past couple days via WWWStat, for example. Today's site is courtesy Anne Walker: United Media comic page.