Life imitating art
The other night I was watering the garden. I don't usually do that but my parents asked me to.

So i was standing there between a row of tall tomato plants with a hose, targeting different vegetables and stuff. The dirt was all cracked coz it hadn't rained in a few days and i was ducking various flying bugs.
It then occurred to me that something about all this felt veeery familiar.
Then it dawned on me!!
It was like i was playing Viva Pinata!!!

The Comic Convention
It was fun!! I ran into lots of people I know at their booths or just hanging out! I went nuts at Agnes's table and walked away with a sketch of Star Sapphire, a cute keychain of Supergirl, a wee pin and a print of Wonder Woman, and a necklace with a jellyfish!!!




I also got the new Ragnar book Symptomatica, which is really really lovely.


And finally, I got a bunch of old DC comics,


The war comics were GI Combat. One of the awesomest ones is where a tank is about to run over a cute little puppy. These were all in the $3 bin at one of the booths.

Romance-wise, I got an awesome old Katy Keene and a super cheesy Super DC Giant called Love. Look how cheesy the cover it. That's the 1970s for you! (thanks Joe!!)

On my sci-fi kick, I got a really sweet run of From Beyond Unknown. This series has the most bizarre covers, I love it!!

I found several Justice League comics. Several Giant Size ones, again, $3 each! I am gonna pillage that table at the next show. Woohoo!!

TIFF 2008
Film festival is coming up. I picked up my booklet yesterday and need to pick my choices. I don't even have time to look at the movie lists. *groan* Anyone going? What're you planning to see?

Trumpet
I now am comfortable with about 6 notes. I can play Mary had a Little Lamb without looking at the music book. I keep looking longingly at my old sheet music for Tijana Tribute. I'm so not there yet!

Germany
Leaving for Berlin on the 17th. I'm really excited about this. This is truly going to a country were I have had no exposure to their language whatsoever really (except for Peter saying "Scheisse, Scheisse Pooptie Pants!"). When I went to Tokyo, I had at least done a couple of courses in Japanese, regardless of how little it helped, at least the language looked/sounded familiar. On German, I got nothing. I can't even remember how to say "yes" which I've been told repeatedly!

Camera Advice
Thanks everyone who gave me camera advice in my last post. I'm gonna read some reviews and hopefully go buy something this weekend!

Blackberry Bold
I got a look at one this morning at Rogers. Why don't they ever show you a model with the OS actually demoing on it? They told me that with the amount of time i've had my contract, I am eligible for an upgrade price of $425+tax. I think I'm gonna wait til the price goes down! Eek! Christmas maybE?

I got a gift certificate for $250 from Best Buy to spend on a camera for my bday. I don't mind pitching in some money myself.

http://www.bestbuy.ca/catalog/dept.asp?catid=20218&logon=&langid=EN

Let's say I did want an SLR, which of these would you recommend? Preferrably much less than $1000.

If not, which wee camera would you recommend?

I was looking at this one....
http://www.bestbuy.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?sku_id=0926INGFS10099405&catid=20222&PCName=camera_Sony&logon=&langid=EN

It is time to take a break from my crazy work and talk about doll lust.

This is October's pullip:


She is just totally begging to come home with me! Can you hear her?

And here are some lovelies from the past that I still have not convinced myself to buy yet.
( Read more... )

I gots a donut and chocolate milk! And when he wakes up, a homeless guy is gonna find a donut and chocolate milk tucked behind his boots :D

I went to see Saltimbanco last night, one of the Cirque Du Soleil shows that is in Toronto right now! It was really really good! No birds, Missa! Some of the tricks were really good and the comic relief part was actually really funny! My favorite part was the 2 drummers who swung around ball-ish things on the ends of ropes to make percussion as they hit the ground! They were amazing!!

For weeks I've sat on our front porch and heard the haunting music of the ice cream truck wandering our neighbourhood. Never a peep of the truck itself, nor it's delicious promises of sweet sweet treats!

Last night, I was walking down my street on my way home from work, and lo and behold, the ice cream truck in its full full glory. And me without a coin or bill on me. *cry*

Here is a recent picture of my niece!! OHMIGOD I WANNA EAT HER!!!



That is all!

Work is just retarded busy right now. Our WHAT? Math homework help tutor chat pilot project with Hamiliton-Wentworth School Board ended up being a huge success so it is getting renewed for new year! And our regular ILC website is getting a redesign. I am SO EXCITED about the latter! About freakin time!!! But that means super-busy Nancy-pants right heeere!

Last night I was up til 2am putting up auctions. I need to make room so I put up things that take up a lot of space. I think 3/4 of a box would be cleared up if I managed to sell those 3 Tomorrow's Parties skirts and the 2 Salon Du Pop dresses. hehee. And things with padded cups! They take up more space too coz they puff up!

Tonight is my last sewing class at Sew Be it with pers I still have a lot to do on my dress. The sleeves, zipper and hemming the skirt!

Here are some pics from last week when I tried it on to fit it more, excuse my awkward-crinoline-induced-big bum + horrible socks!:

( full size behind cut )

And last night I got to hang out with one of my university buddies Ruth! It was so awesome catching up. We used to sit in the physics building and do our assignments together back in the day. From what I hear, the University of Guelph has changed a lot! The chemistry building is gone apparently! :O I kinda miss university. Except when I think about the homework, then that stops promptly!

"People would care even more about climate change if, instead of talking about rising sea levels, environmentalists started talking about swarms of mosquitoes. A warmer earth will be an itchier place." -The Frontal Cortex

Kinda reminds me of the scientist alien in Lilo and Stitch and his obsession with mosquitoes being an endangered species!

Trying to wind down and go back to sleep..

Around 4am I was sound asleep and woke up to a huge noise and shaking.I thought maybe my mom had fallen down the stairs or something but we all got up and established that no one was hurt so we were trying to figure out what fell down.

Then I came back to my bed and looked out the window and just then a huge fireball exploded in the sky! It lit the whole sky up orange! It was surreal, lemme tell you! We went outside and all the neighbours were awake too and I thought one of the houses in the block behind us was on fire or something. A bunch of teenagers were walking by and told us that something is on fire east of the train tracks.

It sounded like fireworks were going off as there were repeats of explosions and more fireballs. So it appears that a propane depot/refinery has caught fire nearby. I know that Dehavillant/Bombardier's factory is right on the other side of the train tracks so it must be there. I really hope that no one was hurt :(

Here are some pics that people caught of it:
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=toronto+explosion

I was thinking though, I was supposed to go out tonight but didn't because I have a photo shoot to be in tomorrow, I'm glad that I stayed home, coz I woulda been coming home along that length of Wilson around the time this started! :O

(About 5 yrs ago someone's propane fueled catering truck blew up in their driveway just down the block from us, so this isn't the first time something like this has happened around here!)

Edit: I can't believe the National Post is quoting LJ :o

Also, there appear to be casualties :(

More edit:
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y184/loathias/sunrise.jpg

Video of the explosion that some guy got. The crazy stuff happens around 1:50 mins in.

Is it true what they say about how life only speeds up as you get older? I believe it! Time is just whizzing by!

work
I've been retarded busy at work with the absence of various coworkers. Those of us remaining are trying to get through 8+ yrs worth of neglected spaghetti code. Some pages that I have opened have been like feasting my eyes on a full frontal view of Cthulhu. There was one piece of code that I looked at on Friday night that made me run crying from the building. Let me tell you!

working on holidays
On Monday, I had to work. That is, I had to attend a conference about a piece of software called Knowledge Forum. It kinda sucked having my long weekend cut short, but I am getting 2 vacation days to make up for it! Yippee!

The conference was very fascinating. Me and my boss attended on behalf of our company. It was a small group of people, maybe 20-30 in total. Some of them came from as far away as New Zealand, Singapore and Hong Kong. There were a number of people from some universities in the USA. I was attending because yesterday's session was supposed to be technical. It became evident about 15 minutes into the proceeding that I was surrounded by a bunch of very intelligent academics who are all experts in learning. Some of the girls from Hong Kong were freaking me out when they were talking about how to assess students' progress in learning. I sat there and listened, had an idea what they were talking about initially and then they just went into crazy statistics and analytics and I was just lost! :o So needless to say, everyone was getting so excited about theoretic stuff, that they hardly talked about technical things. The lady running the conference noticed this and after lunch split us into groups, one technical, one theoretic. I kind of would have liked to listen in on the other one as well though.

Learning for a Price
One of the groups that I found very exciting was the Online Learning Initiative from Carnegie Mellon. (I kept thinking of MELONS though! What a funny name for a school!). They believe that knowledge should not be locked up in universities and colleges where you have to pay to get at it. I agree. One thing that I miss about the oooold internet is that universities and knowledge communities made all their online content available to everyone. You could check out all sorts of neat science/math shit on different professor's websites for their courses and such. Sometime in the last decade, I started to notice that many professors password protect their course websites. That blows. I mean really really really blows. I finished my time at university but I still want to learn more and I find it disheartening that keeping up with that learning must be at a cost. Soo OLI, with that same belief are making courses available on their website. Nifty shit like Statistics and Physics and Computational Discrete Mathematics. FOR FREE. :D

People who like or hate Toronto
At the conference, I spoke with a man from New Zealand. He's been here a few days and absolutely loves our city. He loves the very multi-cultural events that he's been exposed to and is looking forward to more of them this week while he is here. My boss who was also at the conference, he's originally from South Africa. He also loves Toronto. Says it is safe and relatively clean and awesome. I realized listening to them talk, that every time someone says that they love Toronto, I am shocked, mostly coz of all the negative comments I hear from either the rest of the country, or even people who live here, I just assume most everyone hates it (Quebecers at comic conventions who have to go on about how much better Montreal is to me for 1/2 hr when I am trying to shop and their booth, or people who live in Guelph who say it smells and is full of traffic for instance [helloooo smelly cow shit in spring or helloooooo trafficy Hwy 6 with your stop lights every 5 feet!] but i digress!).

Me, I love that we have a subway system here that runs relatively well and you can get most everywhere at any time of the day or night and not worry about being stranded. I love that we have 2 comic conventions, several anime ones and various other sci-fi events. I love that we have a variety of night clubs for just about aaaany kind of music. I love that I went to a goth/EBM night on Friday night and a 50s-ish-80s-ish style music night on Saturday night. I love that it doesn't smell like cow poo here in the spring as well! That is kinda a bonus!


To toxify my body or otherwise?
Also, I never thought I would say this, but I am glad that I am not eat healthy all the time. I don't think I could afford it! I got lunch at Fresh during our break, which was VERY VERY YUMMY but set me back $20 for a fruit smoothie and a black bean burrito. I don't think I could do that every day! Eek!

More Detox
On Friday afternoon is going to be an awesome day of spa goodness for me. I am very excited! First a Body Blitz Water Circuit and theeeen a 60 minute massage. Ooooh lord I need one soOOooO badly!

Computers
I rarely use my desk top computer since I got a laptop and as a result it is suffering from serious neglect and it is super slow! It is time to wipe it clean and do a fresh install! I think it's too slow to do games on anymore and I kinda stopped gaming since the laptop as well. For some reason I've always perceived that laptops are useless for pc games because of their graphic cards. Is this true anymore?

SCATTERGORIES: Copy the text below, erase my answers, then use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the following. They have to be real places, names, things.. nothing made up! Try to use different answers if the person in front of you had the same 1st initial.. You CAN'T use your name for the boy/girl name question.


WHAT IS YOUR NAME? Nancy.
4 LETTER WORD: Nail.
BOY NAME: Nando.
GIRL NAME: Nunziata.
OCCUPATION: Nondestructive Testers & Inspectors (NOC Code 2261, BABY!(Found here)
A COLOUR: Navajo white (#FFDEAD, RBG: 255,222,173).
SOMETHING YOU WEAR: Neck tie!.
BEVERAGE: Noodle juice.
FOOD: Naan with butterchicken (HA!).
SOMETHING FOUND IN A BATHROOM: Nancy (when I gotta pee!).
PLACE: Nancy, France.
REASON FOR BEING LATE: Narcolepsy (I know a few Mexicans that suffer from this! *cough*).
SOMETHING YOU SHOUT: NoOOooOOOoooooooOOoooOOoo!

Mon beau gave me a trumpet for my birthday!!!! A real freakin trumpet! With a mouthpiece and everything :D I haven't played since around 1988/1989. I dug up my old sheet music when I got home from work and quickly tried a few notes before my parents went to bed. Apparently I haven't lost the embouchure though I don't remember any of the notes at all. :)

I was looking through the pamphlets that came with it on the bus ride home.
Did you know there's trumpet bling?? I shit you not!

You can get Trumpet Finger Buttons in various semi-precious stones including sardonyx!


These babies will set you back $135! You can also get gold or silver plated valve caps and valve stems.

Then there's trumpet mutes. Honestly, they scare me. Tell me they don't look like some scary buttplug or something.

I am not going this year. *cry*

jcoville has been trying to tempt me to go. I wish wish wish I could!! I keep seeing news about artists and stuff that I sooo wanna go see and give all my money to.

For instance, Ragnar is going to be there. He has a new book called Symptomatica!! If he is selling this there as a print I will just die for missing it:


Ray Caesar won't be there. But his new book will be! There's a special edition version that's $600 but I've convinced myself real good that I don't need it! ;)


However, in lieu of that, I will be going to Germany in last September! Yaaaaay :) Maybe I'll hit San Diego again next year. Hehe.

books
So I finished The Snow by Adam Roberts this morning on the bus ride to work. The premise is that one day it starts snowing and pretty much never stops til everything has been buried under at least 3 miles of snow. Most of the world's population dies and the few that are left must figure out how to go on. The beginning of it lays out what happens to some particular people. The ideas conveyed are neat. Imagine trying to walk across the top of 3 miles of snow. Imagine you slip through a soft spot. Eek Quick sandsnow!! That idea is soo frightening! I think I'd die. Wait, I likely would. :| The society that remains after that gives you a bit of a taste of something like 1984. I mean, as far as that could go with only a few thousand people remaining in the world. It reminds me of how frightening it is that we have evolved socially as far as we have, and all it takes is a disaster to wipe out the forward thinkers and leave those with the mentalities of the dark ages. It's all so fragile! Overall, I enjoyed this book, the way it was laid out like classified military documents at times, or interviews or propaganda at other times. Roberts could have elaborated more on certain aspects but there's only so much you can do in one book. The beauty of this is that you could write sequels or prequels or parallel-uels! :)




skool
pers and I have signed up for an Intermediate sewing course at Sew Be It Studio that starts tonight! The pattern that I am gonna do is a vintage Vogue dress and with missuh's and pers's help last night, I chose a lovely turquoise fabric with a bit of black embroidery on the edges to do it in! Wish me luck, kiddies, I'm gonna need it. It seems like every force is working against me doing it. I could not find a fabric that has enough left on the roll to do it first. Then when I got home I discovered that the instructions are missing. So I gotta go back and get them at lunch today!

I got torrentially raaained on on the way home from work today


I took a brief respite from it at the Public Library and found these gems:

• Bradbury Stories: 100 of Bradbury's Most Celebrated Tales
  
• H.G. Wells Complete Stories
  
• The Snow by Adam Roberts

Soooo my coworker Corey's going away day is almost here. I won't get to say YOUR FACE to him anymore :( They passed around a card for him today. I wanted to personalize my entry on it a wee bit:

That's a piece of the 5 yr old cupcake on my desk's icing. :) Or maybe it's more than 5 yrs old now, I forget!

Soo now all that's left of our Fantastic Four is Invisible Girl and Thing.

* I'm at work todaaay. I don't mind so much though, it's quiet here and Larry smells like soup but what can you do ya know?

* The Google ads that are showing up on the side of this window include ads such as "5 Tips for a Flat Stomach", "1 Trick to Lose Belly Fat", "How I Lost 55 Pounds". What the hell did it skim from my journal to offer me up these generous secrets?

* My head doesn't like being squished, it seems if I wear my headphones for longer than 10-15 mins, I start getting a headache.

* This is what our backyard looks like since Jada's arrival. (That's what they decided to name her!)

She doesn't even live at our house! LOL.

* And these puppies are coming off our trees right now!

The birds are going nuts with them so my dad's been having to pick as many cherries as he can before they eat them all! Greedy little fuckers!

* I bought the new Walking Dead trade paperback last week when I was out comic shopping and abusing sushi with Nicole. I've waited 6 months for this baby!! 6 freakin' months of agonizing agony of wondering what the heck was gonna happen to Rick and Lori and everyone after the previous trade's nail-destroying cliff-hanger!! FINALLY! I managed to stretch it out over several days. Aaaaaaaand now, I am finished reading it and going SHIT SHIT SHIT what happens next?? *cry* Another 6 months :( I am going to kill myself nooooow.

* I seriously dunno what I would do without my tape measure, tweezers and liquid eyeliner!

Edit: There are Walking Dead spoilers in the comments!

Rogers chumpery
Soo Rogers already has my cell phone plan, my internet plan and my tv plan (I pay for my parents tv stuffs since they pay for just about eeeverything else!). So all they are missing are our home phone. And holy mother do they want it!! In the last week they've called me once, and sent 2 different letters trying to persuade me to change our phone over with allll these "lovely" incentives like a free phone!!! and a cheaper cost for the first year. Fact is, my dad is happy with Bell and they are cheaper ultimately sooo screw off Rogers and stop wasting paper!!

My chumpery
And also, do you get satisfaction out of ripping up advertising mail inviting you to apply for their line of credit/credit card/phone stuff and putting it back into their return envelope that they only pay postage for if it gets used and dropping it in the mail box on your way to work?
I do!!!

Fate's no-so-chumpery
Also, I finally got all ready for heading to work this morning, with 5 mins before the bus would be coming by, and I couldn't find my bag which had my metropass and money in it. Searched hiiiiiiigh and low with my mom's help checking everywhere possible and just couldn't find it. I thought maybe it had ended up outside in one of the shipping boxes that I had thrown out the day before so my mom checked it and found a pair of Gangsta Pranksta shorts that I didn't realize were still in the box! :o :o Then I found my bag hiding under my pillow #$#$#$ And I missed the bus. However, the shorts were SAVED! :D

Chumpery to my stomach
We are going to Taco Bell for lunch today. Yay Fries Supreme! ole~

I don't wanna go to woooork. My bus comes by in about 15 mins and I am still in my pjs!! Can I just stay home instead and sit outside rebuilding my laptop with Oreo at my side chasing the birds away from our cherry trees? Please please please??

I dunno about you, but whenever I see the air craft company Lockheed Martin mentioned in news or whatever, this is always what pops up in my head:



If you are wondering what/who they are, click the pictures for the Wikis