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Showing posts from March, 2010

passing the sick time

Miserable would adequately describe how I feel right now, for yet again I am trapped in the clutches of a cold, that awkward beast. I would really appreciate science figuring out a sure-fire way to lessen its symptoms for I could use some real relief right now. I have been taking Tylenol to reduce the fever but my liver (or something in that area) gave me some pains the other night so I'm avoiding it right now. With this unforeseen time at home I started watching The Big Bang Theory, which is growing on me, a light fare perfect for occupying my cold-numbed mind, distracting me temporarily from my ails. One particularly pleasing scene is where Sheldon admonishes Penny at the supermarket: "Well, there's some value in taking a multi-vitamin but the human body can only absorb so much. What you're buying here are the ingredients for very expensive urine." Whoo, take that pseudoscience! I've also been reading Bobwhite Comics , a webcomic about art students

First US east coast trip

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Cape Cod Got back from my Vermont, Boston, Cape Cod trip Sunday night; some 3000 km of driving! Lots of walking too, so I'm somewhat still recovering. In actual fact, I stayed at home today with a fever and stuffy nose. Nicest day in March and I slept much of it away. We did have some pretty good days weather-wise in Boston and Cape Cod, but it was snowy and/or rainy while in Vermont, my first trip to any of these places. Ok, so the itinerary went something like: Drive from Toronto to Burlington, VT. Enjoy the Vermont countryside, stop in a couple tiny towns. Check into the wrong Holiday Inn, drive to right one. Burlington reminds me a lot of Guelph; laid back, quiet university town with lots of pro-environment sentiments, hippies. Ripped off by the parking meters. Lunched at a Skinny Pancake. Small drive down the highway through the mountains. Dinner at an Olive Garden where a friendly couple struck up a conversation. Visit Montpelier before heading down the s

The Hales Group does something

A couple weeks ago a couple friends and I worked on a submission to an "Internet viral video" contest put on by Doritos (the corned chip people). After throwing around a bunch of ideas, we agreed upon the one that took as little effort as possible and still be technically better than the other submissions. We came up with LOLCAT CRUNCH , which, viewing it again now, is not really all that great or entertaining (though you'd be doing me a big favor by rating us, indeed, possibly financially). It's strange -- the night we edited it, the thing that came out of that session was so amazing and awesome and we were sure we'd do well. However, when we submitted it we were given a message stating it would take 48 hours before the video went online. Two days, three days, then the weekend passed and still our video didn't show up. We created a new account and submitted again and long story short, it took over a week before the video was accepted and went online.

Settling in

So how about those Olympics?? Actually no, I haven't much to say. I've been proudly telling everyone how I've been using the CTV website to watch the games at my leisure, skipping and replaying as I see fit, how ALL television should be. I cheered for the Canadians and the South Koreans, happy to see both doing really well this year. There were plenty of hiccups (luge/bobsled course) and dramas (Ohno, Lysacek vs Plushenko) so one could hardly call it a flawless hosting but has there ever been a perfect games? I was originally going to write about all the minor nuisances and things that I'm having to endure with this condo -- leaky taps, the low humidity (causing havoc on my respiratory until I realized what was happening), the sounds from the street, the streetlamps outside my windows. That was until I encountered a MAJOR nuisance: water leaking from the unit above! Between that happening at 2AM last night and construction starting at a vigorous 7AM today, I did n