Wednesday, December 27, 2006

planes trains and... suckitude

well, i'm writing this from the exotic days in calgary south, after a day of suckitude. after several hours' pleasant drive to toronto (hey, gotta love saving $200 in airfare), i got stuck in the MIDDLE seat all the way to calgary. when we landed, i went to make my connecting flight... and saw the dreaded word CANCELLED on the board. naturally, air canada had neglected to mention this, or to have anyone waiting at the gate to deal with passengers. as a matter of fact, they seemed generally unconcerned. which, as i discovered, was to be the theme for the rest of the evening. when i finally located a staff member to ask about my mild concerns regarding this situation, they told me "just go to the gate where you would have caught your connection. i'm sure they'll deal with it there."
hmmmph.
so, to make a long story short, air canada remained unconcerned, told me that all flights out of calgary were cancelled due to weather, and since it was an act of god, they had no responsibility in helping me pay for accomodations. naturally. they did give me a number to a service that would "book me an available room at a discount".
hmmmmph.
and they instructed me to go get my luggage from the piles of luggage amassing in the arrivals terminal. calling the number they gave me, i was informed that there were currently no hotels in calgary, and i would have to call back later. visions of spending the night sleeping in the luggage carousel danced through my brain. i bummed a cigarette from a complete stranger. then, i took a deep breath and called them back. they told me i had a room at the DAYS INN CALGARY SOUTH, but also told me "we can't really tell you where it is."
hmmmph.
fortunately, my cab driver told me it was a mere 30 minutes away from the airport, and $40 later, here i am, in my $90 room. adding in the $40 back to the airport tomorrow morning (because the calgary airport shuttle went bankrupt, don't you know), i can really see the value in the money i saved travelling to and from toronto.
but it continues! i got here, and they had never heard of me, or of any of the other travellers slogging their way in from the airport. when i finally got it sorted out, i found myself staying in the biggest scarea in calgary. it seems to be in the auto body shop/adult boutique district. there was a dirty sock outside my room and the hallway reeks of drakkar noir. and to top it all off, my phone doesn't work. this makes the wake up call issue a little dicey. currently i'm waiting for a gentleman by the name of "wayne" who is supposedly going to come up here and confirm that my phone is indeed not working.
in the meantime, i'm keeping the door triple locked. there are strange sounds in the hallway, and there was a kerfuffle at the front desk regarding a guest who had just called 911.
hopefully, i'll see edmonton tomorrow morning.
i hope.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

joyeux petit noel!

well, petit noel 2006 has finally arrived. and santa was very, very good to us...




but guess what gift could make me make this face?



you know it! my brand new IPOD!



we also added a couple of members to the crisis on infinite earths family:


robot brainiac and anti-monitor, to be exact.



plus one of the most exciting gifts of the holidays:
the pasta express! how awesome is this? we're going to test it out later on some kraft dinner.









well, i have many more photos, but i am off to make christmas cookies for tonight's party, so perhaps i will update later. but i will be busy doing laundry and updating my ipod for the next couple of days. then, return to the east!

Saturday, December 16, 2006

petit noel preview 2006

in spite of the crushing failure of hufurky, i've decided to continue on as best i can with the holiday traditions. and this weekend, the last weekend before i head back east, is LE PETIT NOEL DEUX. in fact, today is le petit noel eve. or the veille de petit noel, if you want to get particular. and i think it's shaping up to be awesome.
as i mentioned, we took a trip to the dollar store to get some decorations to spruce up the place.









that, combined with my grade 3 level crafting ability, has managed to make things pretty spiffy:







and the piece de resistance is we've added a tree to the traditional decor:


trust me, if you squint, it's even more beautiful. and the "ornaments" are real tin foil!



so now all that's left is to kick back, relax in front of Log, and wait for santa's visit...

goodwill is gone, but dollarama lives on!

and needless to say, it rocks the proverbial casbah.
yes, i was saddened when the goodwill closed. it was a good source of strange microwave recipe books, and t-shirts that say "i love sheep" on the front, and "sheep love me" on the back. but i was incredibly excited to see a dollarama moving into the vacant store.
because it's not one of those dollar stores where some things are a dollar, some things are $1.50, and so on.
no.
everything in the store is one dollar. the only drawback is that they never take debit, so you have to curb your spending to cash on hand. anyway, we went to get some decorations for le petit noel (more on this later), and decided to get The Smudge an early present:


the cat toy glove! could there be a smarter invention? from each finger dangles a tantalizing cat toy!


at first it seemed like he loved it. but within seconds, the mice were tangled, and there was an early casualty:








since then, i've found him dragging the entire tangled mess into the bathroom, and chewing on the broken string.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

who will join me for dinner?

i had a thought today...

what if i took the great taste of HUFU:



(that's a human-flavoured soy product, kids)











and made it into TOFURKY?


(see vegweb.com for recipes)

what would that become?
you know it, it's all-new HUFURKY!

and just in time for the holidays!
who will bring the cranberry sauce?

Thursday, December 07, 2006

up all night studying for my cholesterol test...

that was last night. man, i felt like i was totally unprepared for my cholesterol and glucose tests this morning. i mean, it's not like i didn't know i was going to be tested, i guess i just put off studying until the last minute. when i got there, i was afraid i'd be the first one finished and have to pretend to be writing for a while so it wouldn't be obvious to everyone that i'd blown it. or even worse, being the last one writing up until time was up. and looking woefully unprepared. but when i took the test, it was a lot easier than i thought it would be. i guess i must have absorbed something subliminally, i just can't explain it. i hope i passed, and i swear that next semester i'm going to buckle down and do better. so when the cholesterol/glucose final comes up, i'll be first in the class.
if only my prof wasn't such a bitch.

in more serious news, i got home and my doctor had called me-- well, not my doctor so much as my doctor's half-witted assistant. and she left a message saying "the doctor wants to see you to discuss your x-rays. but it's not urgent." WTF? when i called back, i got the assistant who holds the other half of the shared brain, and i didn't bother pursuing any further info, since she was right up front with the statement "i really don't know anything about it". so i had hip and spine x-rays last week, and now we're going to have a non-urgent discussion about them. i suppose i can assume that it's not a contagious thing, or a fractured thing. which i kind of already knew. perhaps she's found a vestigial tail. or perhaps one of my vertebrae looks like the virgin Mary. maybe she just misses me.
maybe she's throwing me a surprise party to congratulate me on passing my glucose and cholesterol tests!