anecdote

tressa and i are blessed with a downstairs neighbour who complains about the noise we make. this would be fine, if we were making noise.

at first we thought that it was legit complaints on account of me moving in, shuffling furniture, doing some assembly, etc. turns out that the only part of these complaints that was genuine was the 'whine'...wah-wah

first time ever buying brand new! it is a 2010 Mazda 3 GS. It is aluminum (to be delivered in 3-4 weeks) and will look like so

things have been going well for me in the last couple months : ). today was an off day for various reasons which i am too tired to fully blog about and/or should probably not some good was created today though. i have new resolve as to where i want my life to go. as well, in my quarterly doctor visit, i further weened myself down (refer to previous entry) from 150mg to 112.5mg of the nightmare drug that is effexor xr (originally it was 300mg) and plan to go to 75mg in three months time.

first: i don't think people should jog while pushing baby carriages....somewhere along the line you know the baby is gonna get head problems

second: you know you might be drunk (no names) when you get out of a car, put a foot in your purse and say "i think this shoe is too big"

"i lost my shoe."
"oh there it is..."
"it feels too big"

"Earlier this year Carline and I were walking in Vancouver and I said 'that guy looks like Beck'. And he was wearing crazy clothing and was with the actor Giovanni Ribisi's sister, who he was apparently dating. Carline without looking replies 'no, totally not him'. So as he just passed us, I said 'let's pretend we forgot something' and walked back after him. Then Carline looks at him and says 'that is totally him'. And it was apparent that it was him as other people were saying stuff like 'I love your music, gonna see you tomorrow at the Seattle show.' However, Carline could not help staring at Beck and she kept looking at him creepily until he got obviously nervous and nessled into me. And then he said 'hey man, do you know where burrard is?' And I told him 'about two blocks that way' and he said 'Cool man'. The kicker, was upon further inspection he was wearing the exact outfit that he did in his ticketmaster advertisements." ---------- To this anecdote I give my highest rating, the derek zoolander "cool story, hansel"

So, I have not posted an anecdote for a while. Here is a short one, though I'll drag it out as much as possible. Long version: After work today I was very, very hungry. The type of hunger where your blood sugar dips dangerously low and you would make supper but you worry that you might faint while opening the oven door and so on... Having been a long time since having (the only fast food place I actually enjoy) A & W, I decided that that was the quick fix I could heartily endorse today. As I turned into the 8th St locale, I noticed the women ahead of me who was mid twenties to mid thirties. She was plain in appearance and had a baby seat in the back but no visible baby. While in this queue I opened the bag of snap peas that I had bought - yes I had bought groceries, but as mentioned previously could not risk falling into the stove - and thought how tasty they were, and healthy. The next thing I notice is the lady ahead of me starts huffing on a cigarette. I believe she coughed a bit too. Just then, a second lady, this one twenty to thirty years old, a little prettier and with a red car pulls behind me. Quickly glancing in the mirror, I notice she grabs something to place in her mouth - "Could it too be a tasty, healthy treat?" I mused. Nope! A cigarette. I start thinking, hmm...cigarettes...fast food...no connection. Around the corner of the dub, a teenage boy - very heavy, some might say he has taken on 'whopper-like' form (for the nerdburglers out there - yes i realize that is a Burger King term), had a bag of food and went to his car. I thought 'jeez kid, I love a good mozza burger too - who wouldn't? they're delicious! But you got to draw a line somewhere' and then noticed that he had a "whopper family" t-shirt. Clearly he was no stranger to fast food. Paying for and getting my food, I turned left out of the lot and back towards the 8th St lights. In my right lane is the girl in the red car. I noticed it was a Chevrolet Malibu - at this I wondered 'Do girls in red malibus think that they are Malibu Stacey?' thank you simpsons. But then I also thought 'How could her order get done so quickly?' and figured she tried to order some cigs at the drive through. As a last note, I should say that there was an interesting sign saying 'We are not serving tomatoes. Due to the US salmonella scare...blah blah'. "Really A&W!! You are that cheap on your $6 burgers that you will not go down to Safeway and buy some non supplier tomatoes?" I think I should of asked for a fifty cent refund, but hindsight pretends to be twenty-twenty. -------- Short version: there are positive correlations between fast food and unhealthy living

so, i'm sure there is reason for these things, but to the casual observer (me), there is great mystery. quick background: i had my first physical last week and also injured my back in this time frame finally remembered to fast (or forgot to eat...either way) went in to finish the exam by getting my bloodwork done. now, i am no stranger to needles and for various reasons (recreational drug use, not one, surprisingly) have had many in my lifetime. so, after waiting for my turn, i am called and the lady before me says "don't worry. she's good!" (ok, sure. whatever. fake smile) then the nurse says, "oh, are you nervous about this needle." 'no, i'm not.' "ok." (she doesn't believe me). "are you getting hungry?". 'yup.' (i'm a champion abrupt ender of canned smalltalk. this can also be perceived to the uninitiated as being surly) "oh, looks like i have some options" (nurse talk for your veins look easy enough. this is strange to me, because nurses usually say 'your veins are hard to find'. ) "and just a little poke" (it's alright, it really does not hurt). so i look down, and the blood is not coming - slightly expected after the 'options' comment. and i think at this point the nurse is concerned about me freaking out, even though i assure her "i'm fine". so she's jabbing and rotating her needle around, which is already inside of me. nothing. so i suggest 'maybe we should try the other arm?' "good thing you have two!" and then, a "little poke" later, boom, done. so, i was thinking a day later (today), how truly gifted that this lady and most nurses are... i mean - i do not think that i could stick a needle or anything into my arm and NOT draw blood. but, i am always amazed at the surgical precision at which these people can AVOID my veins. i conclude that they teach nurses to aim directly for bone. also, once the bloodwork was done, the nurse says, "i'm gonna need a urine sample, too". now, this was not priorly mentioned and i gave one a day or two before - so i felt like calling her bluff. but it was easier to just comply. ANECDOTE 2: so, i get a lower back x-ray. the nurse (different one) says something about losing my clothes and putting on sometype of two housecoat system (which i'll call the eggo waffle - don't really know why). i figure out how to after a while, and proceed to the x-ray room. now two things surprised me: 1) i was to lay on my back with the x-ray nozzle going through my abdomen. 2) there was no lead jacket/blanket that i remember always having. This has lead me (pun intended - so bad, it's acceptable) to conclude one of three things: a) there were no real x-rays taken b) x-rays have far more precision these days and can be made much weaker c) time will tell if my vital organs become resistant to cancer

so, last night i was going to snack on some tortillas with salsa while watching some tv. i was adjusting my seating arrangement and inadvertently knocked the jar of salsa from off it's place on my coffee-table-like piece of furniture. in the slowed down moment that was its fall to the carpet, i had time to think "no problem, it will all fall in one place". i could not be more wrong, it exploded everywhere, the initial blast radius being the area under my futon. i quickly grabbed some cloths to clean it up. while cleaning, i saw that salsa shrapnel had reached the top of my futon, a blanket on the futon, and pillows. after applying carpet cleaner (handy to have when you're spilly mcgee) i found some more salsa behind one end of the futon (the jar fell at the diametrically [i know big words, and i occasionally like to (mis)use them] opposite end of the futon). after tv, i was tired and decided to crash on the cleaned up futon. pushing the coffee table away from arms reach (so as not to kick off my laptop in the night) i felt some sticky goo on the coffee table arm. it had been salsanated. i got up, turned on a light and cleaned it up. while waking this morning, my eyes gazed upwards and saw salsa on the ceiling!! i have a fairly high ceiling, i'll guestimate it at 9.5 feet. using some high school kinematics equations, i can say that despite it's 2 foot freefall, making it have a velocity of about -3.6m/s when it hit the floor, the salsa had to have an initial upward velocity of atleast 7.7m/s. Thus making the "rubber coefficient" - (f%&* it, it's been 6 years since i took a physics course) of the floor fantastic. crazy!

So I got a book and CD that I ordered through Amazon today. Let me just say, that I have had only good experiences with Amazon. Anyways, the package was left outside the door of my apartment where a neighbour's child could of grabbed it and thrown it in the trash.

So, I am wondering if it is Amazon's strange policy of not making me sign for a package or put it in a safe place for me. Or is my town so safe that the postal people have decided that an unlocked apartment building is a vault.

Furthermore, how does the delivery guy/gal or Amazon know that I'm not shady (like the SPCA apparently suspects), and just wait a few weeks and start phoning and asking where my package is - they would have absolutely NO PROOF. Maybe they just don't worry about packages under $100 because they are so huge.