Clear Away The Cobwebs

... swept away by the tide of work, work & more work, i struggle back to find that three months have passed since the last time I updated. wow!

Existential Dilemma #3451: Apple iPod vs Dell Digital Jukebox? The Dell is cheaper, and holds 30 GB to Apple's 20, but it's an iPod, and they're just so... pretty.

I dunno, there is something enormously appealing about the idea of *never* having to delete any songs ever again, don't you think?

School. Again.

[Alice Cooper] SCHOOL'S BACK FOR WINTER!!! [/Alice Cooper]

Eh, it had to happen eventually, and happen it did. Two weeks is so not enough time to shake off the malaise left by a succession of horrible exams, but here I am anyway.

Boxing Day Sales! were not as spectacular as the exclamation point would seem to imply. I mean, I went all through Eaton's, and frankly, there was nothing I wanted to buy! Besides, it seemed all the stores were selling the same sorts of clothes - synthetic turtlenecks (ew!), pinstripe shirts, hooded shirts, and horror of ultimate horrors, the padded winter jacket with fur-trimmed hood. Okay, it's not that I hate the jacket per se, it's just that EVERYONE has one. I mean, i looked around in one store, and saw THREE people wearing the exact same jacket. It's the same with my beloved tweed jackets - everyone else has one, but me! *weep weep* Anyway, the day was not entirely unfruitful - i did buy some tops from Roots (40% off makes me happy :D) and another from Reitman's, so I did do my part for the Canadian Economy. Yees, my shopping motives are totally unselfish...

TTC Pet Peeves:

1. The PDA people - The mornin' commute is bad enough without the lovey-dovey pair in the corner of the compartment continually rubbing noses and swapping spit. People, get a ROOM and out of our faces.
   
2. The dog people - Someone accused me today of being dog-phobic, and that's not entirely true. I'm only scared of dogs I don't know yet - which means that I'm scared of all the dogs in the world, except two. So yeah, I'm not entirely appreciative when over-enthusiastic dog owners decide to have their dog play effin' catch in the subway compartment. Oh, and the pair of dog-lovers who decided to bring THREE (that's right, folks - not one, not two, but three!) dogs on a crowded bus, and then fumbled ineffectively when two of the dogs slipped off their leashes - yeah, I'm not too fond of them either.
   
3. The wonderful way the buses don't show up on the days you have exams - but that's another rant for another day. :-D
   

Music I'm listening to - Music from the O.C., Mix 2 - especially Dios Malos' "You've got me all wrong", Nada Surf's cover of "If you leave" & Keane's "Walnut Tree." Seriously good tracks, all of them. Oh, and The Prodigy's "Spitfire" (from the album Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned) is quite possibly one of the most catchy tunes ever.

If anyone wants a gmail invite, just leave a comment below - i have ten of those puppies, just waiting for a good home. :D

Now I leave you with a bunch of arcane quizzes. What can I say - if you get 'em, you get 'em. :D

Which Rurouni Kenshin Character Are You?

Test Created By oronoda

what's your cowboy bebop theme song?

This last one isn't a quiz, but I included it, cause it's funny. What's your warning label?

electric.abacus may explode without warning

M EXPLOSIVE

Username:

From Go-Quiz.com

P.S. Visit Hem's blog and convince her not to stop blogging. :D Strength in numbers, people!

Christmas Catching Up

First of all, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! :-D

Okay, I realize I haven't done this in... quite a while. The exams were... overwhelming, to say the very least. You've all see that cartoon where a character suddenly gets buried under a mountain of snow? That was me, at exam time - blinking madly, looking dazed, and listening to the chirping of imaginary songbirds as they circled my head. Yes, the exams weren't great - and it didn't exactly help that i had 3 exams in 3 days, which shot my concentration to hell for my last, and WORST, exam. On top of that, I managed to catch a cold! muchos argh!!!

Anyway, that's all over and done with, thankfully. I greeted my meagre 2-week holiday with the sort of joy usually reserved for wedding days and other such momentous occasions: "Oh, Joy, Rapture and Bliss! The freedom to watch television again at last, to catch up on my manga and anime reading!" I said as much to Steph, on our post-exam shopping trip! And then I realized - there are no new tv show episodes for the last 2 weeks of January, the Kakashi Gaiden on Naruto ain't all that great, and Bleach manga and anime episodes come few and far between. So yeah, I've spent a whole week doing absolutely nothing, and y'know what, it's been fun. :-D

The family and I went for midnight mass last night - un-fortunately, we thought it started at 11:30, and so got there nice and early at 10:45 - except it started at midnight. Me sitting with nothing to do for more than an hour? Baaad things happen. I mean, one can only critique the clothes of your fellow congregation members for so long, right? And before you start telling me I should be less critical of people's dress choice, remember - there is NO excuse for wearing a tan suit with a blue shirt and a red tie - none whatsoever. To make matters worse, the suit wasn't even well tailored! Anyway, one can only mentally pick apart outfits for so long; as time wore on, I began to contemplate hurling various pieces of jewellery at random people: "Wouldn't it be fun to nail that random guy with this chunky ring?" But then I remembered - my aim sucks! Attempts at recruiting family members into my zany throw-stuff-at-people scheme failed, so the good people of my parish remain uninjured and unharassed for now. :-D

Theoretical Question: How exactly do you go about breaking off a friendship? Or maybe an acquaintance? I mean, suppose you find that you and person X are completely incompatible - but this is someone whom you see almost every day, so you can't just go out of your way to avoid her/him - what are you supposed to do? How are you supposed to say, "My God, you're really f***ing annoying, and my life would be so much happier if I didn't have to put up with your idiotic bullshit!!" How do you say all that, except polite, like? All this is strictly theoretical, mind - this could be a useful piece of information to have, right? ;-)

Shameless Plug Time! Go read h3lios' blog, the link is on the right. h3lios is a friend of my esteemed brother, who spends way too much time annoying me on msn (juuust kidding! :-P) Now he's got a webpage, who knows what'll happen?

Off for now. Next update whenever. Or whenever i'm sufficiently bugged about updating. :-D

Take care all! Bye!

PS - Best wishes for a happy new year!

Mid-Semester Crisis

Now Playing: To The Roof - by John Powell - from The Bourne Supremacy OST

I *HATE* this part of the semester - mostly because this is when I run out of steam, start phoning it in, skipping class - all of which results in me mucking up my exams. Try as I might, I'm too apathetic/lethargic to care. argh.

And we're fresh out of the sugar-high-inducing, heart-attack-causing chocolate cheesecake, so now what have I got to look forward to? :D

Yesterday was the Biome Pubnight thing - didn't stay very long, but it was nice to see all those people in the flesh! In attendance were Aravind, Chris, Derek, Nina, ZMP, Yonny, Shankar, Ali, Olly and Steff (among others). We had way too much fun simply taking silly pictures - which (hopefully) will never see the light of day. *crossed fingers*

Who else watches Lost? I'm one of that rare breed of U of T students who actually watches television. The rest of the lot are too busy studying. Such dedication on me part, wot? Anywho, I really like Lost now - and not just cause of the hot guys - the ideas are pretty good too. I think all JJ Abrams shows have those two factors going for them - hot guys and good scriptwriting. Recall the second season of Alias - best season EVER, episodewise, and there were THREE hot guys as regular cast members (be still, my beating heart!) - and then Will had to go leave. feh.

Gah - friday afternoon scatterbrain syndrome is the worst. I wonder if there are actually people in the world who get work done on Friday? I mean, I can't. Not if I've come through a five day work-week. I can get cracking on the Saturday morning, but friday, i'm as useless as can be. Which is why I'm here doing this, after all, instead of so-called "productive work".

PJ TIME!

(not jammies, PJ = poor joke - my specialty, don't ye know?)

___________________________________________

The owner of the Wilson Nails factory calls up his ad agency and tells them to make a commercial showing off his nails. The ad exec says "no problem," and that the commercial will air that night at 8 p.m. So Mr. Wilson turns on his TV at 8 p.m. and his commercial starts.

It looks like this: Two Romans come out carrying spears and walk up to a cross with Jesus hanging on it. The camera focus on his hands and the >head of the nail, which clearly has "Wilson" written on it. Mr. Wilson goes completely crazy, calls up his ad exec and tells him to get rid of that commercial before the Catholic Church sues him.

The ad exec says okay, and that he will make another commercial the following night at 8 p.m. At 8 p.m. the next day, Mr. Wilson turns on the tube and his commercial starts. This time, two Romans come out carrying spears and approach the cross, but Jesus is not on it -- we can see him running away in the background. One Roman guard says to the other, "I told you we should have used Wilson Nails."

___________________________________________
(implausible - but still funny, right? right? hello?)

Finally - thanks to all who wished me on my birthday (you know who you are!) - you made my day! So a big e-hug to all of you! :D

Birthday!

Ah, been ages. Midterm Hell is finally over, and so I can post once more!!! :D

So, we went out to celebrate my birthday last Friday! Well, mine AND Linda's, actually - Linda's birthday was last, last Sunday, and mine is this Saturday, so we thought we'd go out to celebrate both at the same time! So Steph, Linda, Mimi and I went shopping at Eaton's. I finally got to go to H&M!!! I love their coats, by the way! I was gushing over every single one in the store! Anyway, I ended up buying a brown suede skirt, with these ruffles :D - it's kinda cute. Linda was eyeing this yellow jacket, but then didn't buy it. :( We then wandered around Eaton's for a bit more, looking at the stores, and then we went to Spring Rolls for Thai food!

Katie joined us for dinner - she'd have been there earlier, but she had the Physiology miderm this Monday, so she stayed in to study. Anyway, dinner was wonderful - the food was good (and swanky!), the company was great, and the conversation interesting. We did manage to prove that I can't tell a joke without breaking into a giggle-fit - great day for science, wot? AND Mimi got me the second Inuyasha movie! The animation is sooo crisp; i'm never going to be able to watch an episode of the regular TV show normally.

Had to present a paper for my Developmental Biology class - despite my TOTAL fear of public speaking, managed to get through it without embarrassing myself more than usual! Woohoo!

What else? Re- the US election - i'm not even going to bother commenting. really. i've already ranted IRL more than is good for me.

Bleh. And now, I have two weeks of relatively free time! POWER TO THE SLACKERS!

random music note before I leave - get the Samurai Champloo OSTs. All four of them. they are THAT good.

ciao!