Luxury

One of my favourite feelings in the world is a Sunday evening when I don't have to wake up early the next morning.

People are listening to me!

1. The long-awaited third book in a trilogy I started reading nearly a decade ago (and the first book in the trilogy was written nearly a decade before that) was recently released in English. (The other option was German, but I find German too arduous for recreational reading.) However, it wasn't in the Toronto library's catalogue. So I sent them a nice little email pointing out that this is the third book in the trilogy and they do have the other two in their collection, so it would be nice to stock the third as well. And, lo and behold, the third book is now in their collection and waiting patiently on my holds list!

2. The Weather Network would include humidex information on its long-range forecasts on television, but not on its website. So I sent them an email suggesting that they put humidex information on the website as well, since they clearly do have that data. Within a couple of weeks, humidex information showed up in the long-range forecasts on the website too!

3. In February 2004, I suggested soundtracking a movie with commonly misheard lyrics. Now they have a gameshow that does that.

4. In March 2004, I said that the TTC should market itself as a convenience to drivers. Now they're considering marketing themselves to people who don't ride the TTC.

Okay, so those last two are a bit of a stretch, but this still an awful lot of synchronicity.

Today I am a comedian

In bilingual environments, I have English days and French days. On English days, strangers with no external cues speak to me in English. On French days, strangers with no external cues speak to me in French.

Today I seem to be having a third kind of day. Today I am having a comedian day. Everything I say with even the slightest element of humour gets a laugh. And by humour, I don't mean that I was telling a joke. I mean that there was some element of understatement or irony or some other literary device in my statment, and it would get a laugh. I have no idea why, but that happened all day today.

Edited to add the relevant Python.

The ethics of newspaper delivery

Apparently if you subscribe to the Toronto Star and you don't get a newspaper and you report this and ask them to credit your account, they'll deduct $5 from the carrier's pay. This blog mentioned it, and someone (who I don't know very well, but would be in a position to know) told me so IRL.

This seems wrong, especially considering that the paper costs like $1 each in store, and the Star seems so eager to sell me subscriptions at under $1 a week.

I'm not sure how I feel about this.

How to shock people

I have a lot of opinions about a lot of things. Most of my opinions are controversial to some people, and some of my opinions are controversial to most people. I tend to question societal norms, and follow them only if they meet my own needs.

But there's one statement which above and beyond shocks the most people. Of all the things I've said in my life, it has made the most people gasp, clutch their metaphorical pearls, say "You don't mean that!", try to convince me otherwise, and think there's something serious wrong with me for feeling this way.

Here is the statement:

"I don't care at all, in any way whatsoever, what colour my walls are painted."

I'm so sore and grumpy today. I wore my old flat sandals shopping yesterday, and they gave me blisters for some reason, even though I've been wearing them for years. Then on the way home I got on a bus that was supposed to go to Yonge, but it only went as far as Bathurst, so I had to walk home from Bathurst. (What's the point of a bus that goes from Dufferin to Bathurst?) On the positive side, I did get a couple of tops, a really cute skirt (yes, cute.), and a couple of library books, so I think for today I'll just plunge into a nice fat library book and nurse my aches and pains. I wish I had a heating pad, but I don't feel like walking all the way to Shoppers (two whole blocks!) to buy one. Especially since I don't know what they cost or if my Shoppers even has one.

Would you like to see me graduate?

Step 1: Go here to find the date and time of my ceremony. (If you can't figure out which ceremony I'm in from the information presented on this page, this message isn't directed at you anyway.)

Step 2: At the date and time of my ceremony, go here and watch it streamed live.

I bought 8L of pop, put it in my backpack, and carried it home. And it was HEAVY! But 8L is 8kg, and 8 kg can't be much more than 20 pounds, definitely less than 25 pounds. Twenty-five pounds isn't heavy! I certainly carried more than that around on a daily basis when I was in high school, and you don't just lose your lugging on your back muscles! So why did it feel so heavy?