kids for sale

Hey, check out http://208.169.218.91/kids.html. (screen snapshot of an actual eBay ad) Bizarre, or what?

Cathy and I went to the ballet last night and checked out the Erik Bruhn competition at the Hummingbird Centre. It's much more exciting than the usual ballet event because the entrants are fairly young (18-23 years old) and none are principal dancers. Several ballet companies enter two of their most promising young dancers. You can see the nervousness in their dancing sometimes, and they usual push themselves pretty hard. At the last competition, one of the ballerinas fell :(. The atmosphere is sort of like that of the Olympics figure skating crowd, I suppose...lots of ooohs and ooohs and spontaneous applause, very unlike a typical ballet performance.

Drowning in work.

I'm still using Grocery Gateway, by the way. I love ordering my groceries online; saves so much time, and I'm also spending less. The delivery guys are all cute and very polite (and no one has called me 'ma'am', yet).

Got a cellphone yesterday. Might sound weird for someone who works at home, but I'm finding it necessary these days. Anyway, I discovered in the process of buying the phone that as a married woman who shares a bank account with her husband and is self-employed, I'm pretty much of a non-person. They wouldn't let me buy the phone at first. I've never had a loan, so I have no credit history (I guess my student loan didn't count). I showed them my driver's license, my social insurance number, my credit card, a picture of my niece Sara...no dice. I don't get it...my monthly online expenses are much higher than the cost of that phone! What's the difference? Anyway, I finally managed to get around it by pre-paying a number of months (normally, payments are automatically taken off each month). Definitely a sobering experience, though.

After I finally got the phone working properly (I won't bore you with the details, but I spent a lot of time griping to Cantel on the phone), I discovered that the phone comes with three GAMES on it. GAMES. On a PHONE. Why on earth does a phone need games on it? I just don't understand. Or maybe I'm just hopelessly behind the times. Maybe all the hip new generation are saying, "I want a phone with games on it. If it doesn't have games on it, I'm not buying it." I can also change the ringer so that instead of a terribly dull but functional RIIIING, I can get the phone to play a few bars from Mozart's Symphony No. 40 In D Minor (granted, it doesn't sound quite like the live orchestra version), Fur Elise, etc. etc. WHAT IS THE WORLD COMING TO? Wow, do I sound like an oldster, or what? Geez...(Debbie gropes for her cane)...

Thanks for the welcome back in Blatherings, everyone. :-)

slug

ACK I feel like a slug, haven't been to the club all week because of work. As a result, though (duh uh), I'm finding I have less energy FOR work. So I'm going to claw my way out of the overwhelming mountain of work email and editorial stuff and paperwork to get back on my regular jockette schedule.

Jeff and I are going to see Rushmore tonight (Craig might come, too). Then we're both working the whole weekend, woohoo!

Site of the day: How To Get Babes - A Guide For Geeks. Thanks to my pal Reid for this URL.

Great practice last night; got lots of prep done for FKO as well as choosing a tentative playlist for our concert. ONLY ONE MORE MONTH. Jodi lent me her Laurell K. Hamilton trilogy consisting of the next three books, yay! I also accidentally borrowed a copy of a Watchmen compilation from Reid.

Am experimenting with different (and very silly) rings for my cellphone. Unfortunately I left it on a particularly silly ring on Tuesday night, and the phone went off near the end of a meeting I was having Wednesday morning...the William Tell Overture, I think. "Interesting ring," the other person commented as we shook hands good-bye. I think I'm going to turn my cellphone off during meetings from now on...

Went to a celebratory lunch at Fune today with some friends to celebrate the fact that our friend Andy just got hired at IBM. Yum, salmon sushi.

Drowningdrowning in work. I need more icecream....

annie's 2nd birthday

Saw Vertigo with David last night...fun movie!

Jeff and I worked all day, going to celebrate Annie's 2nd birthday tonight (we were supposed to last week, but Ruth had pneumonia :( ).

I'm learning Microsoft Excel. As much as I hate bookkeeping, this is a pretty cool program.

My current favourite cookie: President's Choice Peanut Butter Cream Cookies, yum! A FOOD POLL: What's your favourite cookie ever, commercially made? How about homemade?

a deep thought about cats

Today's Deep Thought:

"When a cat is dropped, it always lands on its feet, and when toast is dropped, it always lands with the buttered side facing down. I propose to strap buttered toast to the back of a cat; the two will hover, spinning inches above the ground. With a giant buttered cat array, a high-speed monorail could easily link major metropolitan areas."

(thanks to Rand for forwarding this)

27 more days until FKO!

still digging out

Toronto is still digging itself out from the storm, but it looks like things
are on their way to being back to normal.

Did a phone interview with Sympatico Netlife magazine (they're doing an article
on online zines). They said they found out about me through the most recent issue
of Broken Pencil magazine...didn't know about that one, will have to pick up a
copy for myself.

Hey, I actually COOKED last night. Thought Jeff was coming home for dinner, so made
a chicken stew from scratch (even the broth). And it turned ok pretty well! I was
shocked. :-) Sadly, Jeff ended up having to work late and didn't get home until
2:30 a.m., which is the norm for him these days. He promises me he's back to normal schedule starting this week, tho...

Ordered again from Grocery Gateway,
doublechecked the order over the phone. The guy manning the phone (Steve) remembered
me!

Officemusic: Stunt (Barenaked Ladies)...I find I always have to dance during the first song; I can't help it!!! Knocking stuff off the shelves in my little office, but it does start the day off right. :-)

p.s. I still haven't taken our xmas tree down. I am so bad...

p.p.s. Groceries got delivered on time and in good condition again! Different delivery guy, but just as cute as last time. ;-) Where are they hiring these fellows? Courteous but friendly, refused my tip (said they have a policy of not accepting tips). I'm going to try to get the next delivery guy to agree to have his picture taken so I can post it here...I would have done it this time except I didn't think of it until he was gone. :(

p.p.p.s. My friend Mike Lloyd told me about a mochi-maker that his mom-in-law used to have (I raved about the culinary delights of mochi in an earlier blathering). I want one! Have to find a place that sells them, though...