The Never Updated Blog

So, Thursday came and went and no eggnogging happened. It is the end of a tradition. The end of an era . . . .albeit an unhealthy one . . . . .While I have still enjoyed the pleasures of the noggins with dinner every night this holiday season, the eggnog party was a no-go. It makes my heart feel heavy, or maybe that's from drinking too much eggnog. . . . Anyway, I promised to fill you in on it's origins and history, so here goes.

The eggnog party was an idea that we had when David and I found out that several of his friends hadn't been allowed to drink straight eggnog as kids on the basis that it was unhealthy. Instead, their mothers insisted on mixing it half and half with skim milk. This is an abomination. We couldn't let this stand. So, the eggnog party was born. In highschool it was traditionally held on the last day of school. After class we would trudge to Mac's Milk Store and get some high quality - so thick you can feel your arteries clog just thinking about - it Neilson's Eggnog. Then we would walk to Ryan Denholme's house and watch one of the Aliens movies and chug our 2-3 litres of eggnog each. The first year was just eggnog, but over the course of the next few years, other delectables such pizza, and Candycane crackle ice cream were added. We always went home bloated and happy. We've done it every year for at least the last six years, as we moved on to higher education, the location changed and it began to be scheduled the first free night after the last person was done their exams. Well, being the youngest, and the only one who is in a four year program, I was making everyone wait until I was done. Maybe people are just getting too sensible or something, the interest was there, but the commitment wasn't. Oh well . . .I suppose these things happen.

So, turkeys . . . . .and thawing. When employing the immersion in water technique, I always think:

"To float, or not to float,
That is the qustion.
Whether is better in my mind to sink
This bird which slings and arrows have brought to my landry sink,
Or to allow to float amidst a sea of amoebic troubles."
--Turkspeare

Well, I came to the conclusion that sinking the bird would be better that leaving part of it exposed to the air and the warmth - the object is after all to thaw the bird, not to allow it to go squirdgy(that's the technical term). Once this decision is made however, the problem arises of how to sink the bird. My first thought was that there is an air cavity in there which is the cause of my bird's bouyancy. Logically then the easiest way to remove the air is to simply allow the space to fill with water, but a torpedo will neither fit in my laundry sink, nor leave the bird looking respectable for the table tomorrow afternoon. The next best thing then would be to weigh it down, but with what? Most things that I tried were either not heavy enough to submerge the bird, or the bird would slide out from underneath the weight and rise to the surface again. Then it hit me. Dad has a diving belt with lead weights on it. Perfect. I can wrap the thing in lead and then expect not to come down with lead poisoning tomorrow. Not perfect. Ahhh, but the bird is already double sealed to keep it away from the sink which is commonly used for such things as cleaning paintbrushes and washing cat litter pans. Pefect again. Indeed, the bird is drowning under the weight of a vintage 70's diving belt as we speak. I even took a couple of pics.





December 23rd saw us decorating the tree - we are always late in getting it decorated. As usual Burby came over and helped out. It was good to see him, I almost never get to see him these days. It's kinda funny considering that we live a five minute drive apart. Anyway, trimmed the tree, sipped eggnog and watched the Griswold Christmas Vacation. Such a good movie.

In other knews, it is almost midnight which means that it is almost Christmas. . . . .MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!!! I'm about to go downstairs and have the traditional reading of "The Night Before Christmas" before I go to bed. Mom still enjoys doing stockings and I some how don't feel obligated to persuade her otherwise :) As kids the rule was that we could open our stockings before the parentals were up, but had to wait for the other presents until they woke up. So, with tomorrow being a Sunday I will open my stocking before church, but that is it. As far as I know church is at the same time as normal - 9:30am - which means that I gotta get to bed.

Good night Folks

Andrew

So, Saturday was my last exam - my first Saturday exam in 3-1/2 years of university. I had to book time off work just to go to it. Not that I particularly missed spending my day at work mind you. I was done my exam by 11am so I could have done 5/6 of my shift, but seeing how I'm wouldn't have received my wages for working on Saturday until two weeks from this upcoming Thursday and I will most definitely have done all of my Christmas shopping by then, I didn't really feel like going in to work . . . .and it was my last exam . . .. I slept most of the afternoon away - very exciting, but oh soooo good - then I was supposed to go to the annual eggnog party. That's right, a party where the main focus is drinking eggnog - the non-alcoholic type 'cause I don't drink. It is a tradition dating back to my gr, 9 year. Anyhoo - it got cancelled, well ok, rescheduled until Thursday - so I'll post on Thursday or Friday letting you know the details and the history. So, I was left with the problem of my first free night in ages and not much to do. Most of my friends had gone home already for the holidays. I guess that's one problem with living at home and going university five blocks away: when the holidays come, it gets really quiet. At any rate, my brother, David, suggested that we go see a movie with a couple of his friends that he had stood up for something or other during the day. I agreed and we set off to Hamilton to watch King Kong with a nagging suspicion in my head that I was forgetting something that I had to do, which I promptly remembered halfway to Hamilton(good movie by the way). My credit card bill was due. I normally pay it online, and normally at least a day early, especially if it falls on the weekend. Now, I don't like carrying a balance, but even if I just decided to carry the balance, I would still have to make the minimum payment. $10. If I was going to pay, I might as well pay the whole thing, I mean I had the money, so what's the point of paying interest, right? Luckily, David had his new laptop in the car with us, so we set about trying to find a wifi hotspot. We found one(the simplified version) - but then I realized I didn't remember how much the balance was. So, I called home and got mom to go and get the bill off my desk and tell me the balance. She did so without complaint - thanks mom. Then, I go into the Second cup where I had seen the hotspot sign in the window. Coincidentally, it was where we were meeting David's friends before the movie. I get a drink, hot apple cider with cinnamon, and try to get on the internet. I couldn't. Well, I could, but access was restricted to second cup's website, rogers.ca etc. In order to really use the internet you had to pay. $6 for 1 hr. I didn't clue in that that is about what the interest charges would have been(maybe more actually), but went straight ahead and purchased 1 hr with my credit card. Upon the completion of the transaction, it notifies me that my username and password will be emailed to me shortly and that I should log into my email and get the username and password then log into their network with them. But wait just a second . . . . . .I CAN'T USE MY EMAIL BECAUSE THEY NEED ME TO LOG IN FISRT. AGHHHHHHH!!!!!! The stupidity of this system is mind boggling. So, I ask the girl behind the counter what they do in this situation as it must come up a lot. She shrugs and says, "I don't know, it's not my problem, the Rogers people look after that wireless stuff." and walks away. At this point I was pretty ticked off as I had wasted $6 and still hadn't been able to pay the bill. Finally I admitted defeat, watched the movie and payed the bill when I got home - after midnight by a fair chunk. I will definitely be contacting the hotspot folks to demand my money back - for advertising a service that you can't actually use unless you can connect to the internet on your own anyway in which case you wouldn't need their services. I'm also going to complain to second cup about how rude the girl behind the counter was. Even if she couldn't help, there was no call for her to be so rude about it. Anyway. Though defeated, in my on time bill paying saga, I fell I must not remain silent. I'll let y'all (I talk to Americans wayyyy to much) know the outcome, but I suspect it won't come of anything. Grrr, greedy corporate houses of coffee - I don't even drink coffee. . . . .they put a little bah in my humbug - and I was having such a good Christmas season - ok, well I still am. :) noggins on Thursday people . . .noggins on Thursday.

Hmm,
Who would have thought the best way to dispose of a dead whale was to use 1/2 a tonne of dynamite. Well, maybe dispose is the wrong word. Perhaps, disperse over a quarter mile radius and still leave a large portion of the carcas behind is more appropriate. Classic American silliness and lack of forethought.



Sweet dreams folks

Andrew

Well, not that it is a particulary big accomplishment in the grand scheme of things, but I have now enticed 102 of you to waist some of your time reading my blog. To you I say HA! HA! ha. . . .awww, it is a hollow victory. The webstats are still addicting though. So a big shout out is in order to those blogtrekkers out there who valiantly ploughed through the backwaters of the blogosphere in order to get here. To you I say Here Here! Yes, you know who you are . . .I see Billy and Suzy and Johnny and little Katie and gimpy Moe . . . yes, yes, I see you all, you're all here and it makes me feel so good to know that you are. If you're good, maybe I'll let Sam read you a story or his computer, TXL, to teach a cartoon lesson about the world. Ahh, being a kid in the 80s definitely provided me with some strange memories. (Jeff!!! Don't lose your hat again!) Today's Special definitely makes the list as one of those memories. How did I get on this topic again? Ah yes, procrastinating again, that was it. I was going to tell you I was procrastinating. But it didn't realy work. I started writing this post over two hours ago, but I got distracted by doing my work. Strange. Oh well, back at it again.

Andrew

Andrew

Well, Jody, the short answer is yesnosometimes-oh-ok . .no. Never, I'm sorry I am beginning to loose it again. Anyway, over the past week or so since my last post I have finsished classes for the semester and have my first exam tomorrow noon. I'm not too worried about it. The exam I have on Friday is a different matter. At any rate, there have been much more scary things going on.

Last Friday(Dec. 2nd), I left the house to walk to my 11:30am class. The last class of the semester I might add so I definitely wanted to get to it in order to 1. hand in my 16 page essay that would get 0% if it was not on the desk at the beginning of class and 2. be present for any possible exam review or hints(that is the class for which the exam is this Friday). Anyway, I digress. On my way out the back door I was made aware of a rather large dog barking in my neighbour's backyard. Now we share a driveway with my neighbour and the driveway is all that seperates our backyards. No fence, no hedge, no moat with dog eating alligators. As I begin to walk down the driveway I notice that the dog is in fact a pit bull and it is in fact standing directly in the middle of Mrs. Norcott's backyard barking at one particular molecule of air about six inches in front of its face that seems to have enraged it somehow. Not wishing a confrontation, I walk swiftly down my driveway, and if any of you short people out there have gone for a walk with me you will remember telling me to stop running and letting you catch up. Well, that was me walking normally. I was walking fast. Richard Simmons is out to get me in a track suit and sweat band fast. Mistako numero uno. Dogs like fast things. They chase fast things. So, the next thing I know the barking is getting louder . . .and closer . . . .I think to myself, "oh great slobery loudmouth here wants to pick a fight" so I turn around and the pitbull is charging at me, still barking, now at me with large tendrils of drool cascading from his mouth. At 6 feet away I decide to take a page from Chuck Norice's book and round house kick the thing in the head if it gets any closer. Well, maybe not roundhouse kick, but definitely do some damage with with a solid hoof. By the time it got to 3 feet away it had noticed the steeling glint of determination not to be mauled in my eyes and stopped dead in its tracks. Still barking non-stop. I slowly turned around and walked away. As soon as I was out of sight I booked it to class and handed in my essay. On time. hurray. the end.

On Friday afternoon, right after class, I saw a drug bust. Where else would it be but in front of Rumbles bar, the go-go dancer training ground for Seductions night club(not that I have ever been to Seductions, that's really not my scene). Yeah, the cops were in plainclothes and had already cuffed a young guy who had been buying pot from an old grodie looking guy. The old guy was resisting and they had him tackled against the ground and were reading his rights to him. The sidewalk was covered with the dealer's little baggies. Of course, being Brantford, and right across the street from NCO(the call centre where I work), a crowd of people out on their smoke break had crossed the street and were watching the bust. I use the term "watching" rather loosely, a more appropriate term might be something along the lines of peering considering that they were less than two feet away from the cops. The two girls I was walking with wanted to cross the street so as not to have to walk past the drug bust, but in true Brantford style, I made them walk past 1. because not doing so would have required either backtracking or j-walking and 2. everybody really wanted a better look anyway. So we walked past . . leaving a respectable distance out of respect for the cops need for a workable space and then crossed the street. And life continued as normal. One surreal downtown Brantford moment in a long string of surreal downtown Brantford moments.

On Tuesday, I was walking back to the WLUSU office or something with Brad. Anyway, we were crossing Darling St. on George St and some guy passes us on the crosswalk carrying a strung bow and a full sheaf of arrows. He didn't seem to be hunting or have just come from hunting. Just another surreal downtown Brantford moment.

Yesterday I went blogtrekking again and here are the results. I haven't linked the blogs I found these on, instead I just directed you to the content that I thought was interesting. I seem to have come across a theme with this content, but, I am not quite sure what it is, oh wait, yes I do. They are all links that appeal to nerds.

Qrio - dancing robots, not robot dancing
Underwood No. 5 - Typewriter or computer, make up your mind!!
WTF? - not profanity . . no really it isn't
Creepy, odd, and luminous - Beauty kit, plaid, e-baby

enjoy

Andrew