| Sunday, October 31, 2004 |
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Sigh.
[On a side note, thank you all for playing along with me... Now, moving on...] My email conversation from last week. Silly Americans... -------------------- Email #1: From: me To: JBJ Lighting Hi there, I was wondering if you supply any nano-cubes in Western Canada. All of the dealers listed on your website are in Ontario only...which is on the other end of the country (with high shipping charges!) Thank you in advance, Sara -------------------- Email #2: From: JBJ Lighting To: me Hello Sara, Unfortunately, we only have a distributor in Canada. -------------------- Email #3: From: me To: JBJ Lighting Hi, Sorry for the misunderstanding. I am located in Canada as well, but was inquiring as to whether you have any dealers outside of Ontario (which is a province within Canada). Ontario is located on the east coast above New York and Michigan, while I am in the province of Alberta, which is located above Montana. Thanks again! Sara -------------------- Email #4: From: JBJ Lighting To: me Hi Sara, Unfortunately, we do not have any distributors in Canada, only in Ontario. You may want to consider ordering from the US. Liberated at 11:59 p.m. | |
| Wednesday, October 27, 2004 |
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Fuck it.
I mean, really...who am I trying to kid here, anyways? Liberated at 3:01 p.m. | |
| Tuesday, October 26, 2004 |
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A massive inferiority complex
I remember that one of the first things that struck me as odd when I moved to Edmonton was the hatred that Edmontonians seemed to harbour for Calgary, and vice-versa. Having come from the only prairie province without 'twin cities' (Vancouver & Victoria, Calgary & Edmonton, Regina & Saskatoon, Winnipeg & ???), the concept of a rivalry was a new one. I mean, either than Ontario (like every other Canadian), we Winnipeggers really didn't hate anyone...we were "Friendly Manitoba", after all. So this fascination with Calgary was pretty evident once I'd settled down here...it was like this massive inferiority complex intertwined with a longing to play with the big boys. I wonder if this is why, in my three years in Edmonton, I have only managed to plan a trip down to Calgary once...road-tripping with a friend from Lethbridge and, well, two guys from outside Calgary whom I'd met 10 minutes before we jumped in the car. Now, although I may get stoned and beaten for this...I really enjoyed Calgary. I basked in the shiny newness of it all, and planned on going back for another weekend as soon as I could. That was two years ago. [Disclaimer: I have made another pass through Calgary during my time as an "Albertan" (ha!), but it was with Mat and Anand...so it really didn't count. We drove straight through to the U of C Council Chambers, stopped at a grocery store on the way out...and that was it. So I'm not counting that one...] So I discover this morning that plans are in the works for a Calgary outing next week. I'll only be there for the day, and won't really have time to *do* anything either than attend a function...but I'm enthralled by the fact that this isn't any ordinary luncheon - it's a Calgary Luncheon. Ooh! Ahh! Yes, I'm crazy. I know... Perhaps I'm still getting used to the fact that, unlike the 'Peg, Edmonton isn't so alone in the province? Or maybe I'm just drawn to new places, as always... ... On a side note, is there anyone out there with carpentry skills? I mean, I can put together IKEA furniture with the best of them...but for some reason on this particular project, I am proving most incompetent. I've been blaming the manufacturer for the fact that nothing seems to be fitting together like it does in the picture...but that can only take me so far... Liberated at 10:18 a.m. | |
| Saturday, October 23, 2004 |
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Reminiscing about when everything
was less complicated... How far we've all come... **************************************************************************** One of my first post on the webboard (my thirteenth, to be exact): In the "Who's Who" thread; posted on January 27, 2003 @ 11:13 am ---------- I am not: - a hack...but some people tend to point and laugh when I make this assertion - a councillor, and never have been - an exec member, and never have been - a part of any faculty associations, and never have been I am: - generally polite and respectful to those who are deserving - a gal who enjoys a good night out - not Alberta-born...thankfully! I have: - a fish who will also remain anonymous - no political aspirations within the SU - a tattoo on my right hip - been arrested...but only once - problems saying no to people People tell me: - that I should run for a position on council next year...but I'm not - that I take on too much...but that's not going to change - that I need to pick a major and graduate sometime this decade...so I'm working on it **************************************************************************** The private message in which Steve outted me, soon after I posted in the Who's who thread From: Steve Smith To: uncharted Date: January 27, 2003 @ 3:49 pm ---------- Let's see. . . you're female and widely considered a hack. Right there, that narrows it down. My first thought was Clyburn, but then you said that you'd never spoken to Paul Welke. My next guess was Kimmy (she being about the only reasonably active female councilor I could think of who may never have spoken to Welke). We know how that one turned out. Then you said that you had never served on Council, or a Faculty Association. How many other avenues for hacks are there? I thought for a bit that you were going out with a hack (chauvinist that I am), but there aren't that many hacks with girlfriends. Jenn Kelly did occur to me for a bit, but you said that people are encouraging you to run for Council, and Jenn's a grad student. I ask again, what avenues of hackishness remain? You must have some involvement with the S.U., and I thought for a bit that you were one of Mariel's legion of volunteers, but your hackishness seemed to be legislative. The only other thing I could think of was student at large, which essentially meant that you were either [uncharted], Sierra Grinnell, or Terra Melnyk. [uncharted] seems the most likely (read: hackish) of the three. **************************************************************************** My last post on the webboard: In the "Praise Time" thread; posted on March 19, 2004 @ 2:12 am ---------- Back to being serious...just for a minute, I promise... Well, here is mine. It's my first post on the webboard in months, so I hope it's a worthwhile one. Think of it as my last hack words. These are just a few of the thank you's that I need to get out before the end of the year. If there's anyone out there who's about to get insulted that they're not in this post, please don't. Please. I'm hoping that you can find much more worthwhile things to waste your energy on. This is by no means an exhaustive list, it's just me...writing. No editing, no thinking on it...just writing. Which is probably not smart...but I really don't care. SARA'S HACK THANK YOU LIST Thank you: to Steve: for being awesome. Always. Who knew? to Tyler: for taking over where I left off, keeping others sane and being my way-back-when procrastinator partner-in-crime. to Kyle: for being the only guy I've ever met who can rival my wealth of gossip. And for having a birthday party at the Plant. to Henderson: for the best presidential impression I've ever seen, and being my elections support system. to Ariana: for understanding my jokes and how I grew up when no one else does. to Jones: for knowing which window was mine at 3 am. to Allie: for totally getting everything, and offering your apartment as a spa refuge. to Mustafa: for being my favorite messenger buddy, and for being more patient than I deserve. to Bystander: for political ramblings... to Harlow: for finally making my boyfriend take me to the symphony. And for not taking me too seriously when I collapse from arm-waving in the back of Council Chambers. to Roman: for being the best girlfriend a guy can be. And for being an awesome purse bitch. to Nandini: for making me forget. to Janet: for being in charge, but fair. And for keeping tears at bay. to Dane B: for being a genuinely good lunch-mate and being the only person to ever *call* me about hacking (as in, not by computer). to Zita: for listening...it'd just be me and the fishies by now otherwise. And for sticking up for yourself. to Chelle: for all of that MWF @ 3 scheduling, and just putting up with me in general. to Adam: for the best reality check I've ever faced. to Paul Reikie: for turning out to be a really great guy. to Chris Laver: for not hating me *too* much...I hope. to Vivek: for making a point of being positive when I wasn't. to Heather: for being heather, and having fun doing it. And for getting kicked, but getting right back up again and ignoring the bruise. to Welke: for not taking being hated too serious, and for being my couch-mate. to Wepp: for remaining a mystery for so long...it made it all the better when I actually found out. to Kimmy: for knowing exactly what its like. to Anand: for being the best, and most demanding boss ever. And for having the best, most comfortable jacket. to Char: for getting it. to SAPIGers: for telling me all about my first game of strip go fish, and then apologizing afterwards. to Jason Tobias: for being scary (and knowing it), but in a good way. And being the first hack that I ever met...before I knew what a hack was. almost last, but certainly not least: to Terra: that one's for an email...I couldn't even begin to start on here... and, of course, to Chris: that one's not for a public forum... Seriously. Its been...an experience. ... Alright, now that that's out of my system, keep going... **************************************************************************** Liberated at 11:04 a.m. | |
| Friday, October 22, 2004 |
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Has it really come to this?
Courtesy of Reuters... Woman Seeks Husband on a Billboard
Liberated at 10:44 a.m. | |
| Thursday, October 21, 2004 |
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As promised...
Since I've most definitely got the time today, here is the excerpt from the House of Commons yesterday as promised in yesterday's post. Courtesy of Mr. David L. Anderson (CPC - Cypress Hills-Grasslands):
Liberated at 4:44 p.m. | |
| Wednesday, October 20, 2004 |
|
Apologies...
I think this is where I apologize for not paying much attention to my blog this past week. It seems all of my time is being sucked up doing a billion different things, including:
Combine all of that with way too much stuff going on at work, a severe lack of sleep, and the ever-popular personal stuff...the blog is just taking a back seat lately. It's been so bad that I didn't even make it to the ACE annual auction this past weekend...that's when you know you've got problems! Anyway, I'll make a good post or two as soon as things calm down and I get some sleep... Edit: I did manage to update my sidebar...added in some more links in the blog section and good rid of old election stuff. Oh, and by the way if I can find it, I'll post what could be one of the best QP questions of seen in a long time...hopefully I can locate a transcript of it tomorrow... Liberated at 1:42 p.m. | |
| Tuesday, October 12, 2004 |
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I finally get it!
Earlier in the fall, when everyone was busy raving about Zach Braff, I thought they were all crazy. I mean, the guy from Scrubs has suddenly become an attractive, artsy, brooding type?!? Ha, I said! And now, I take it all back. I no longer think Ms. Power is insane. I've developed quite a thing for Zach Braff, which is unusual for me...I don't really do the 'swoon' thing often. Anyway, go see Garden State if you haven't already. And tell me, so I can come with you and see it again... Back to swooning...I mean... Back to work... Liberated at 10:37 a.m. | |
| Friday, October 08, 2004 |
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The other bulge that gets a guy in trouble...
Courtesy of Salon.com Bush's Mystery Bulge The rumour is flying around the globe. Was the President wired during the first debate? Oct. 8, 2004 - Was President Bush literally channeling Karl Rove in his first debate with John Kerry? That's the latest rumor flooding the Internet, unleashed last week in the wake of an image caught by a television camera during the Miami debate. The image shows a large solid object between Bush's shoulder blades as he leans over the lectern and faces moderator Jim Lehrer. The president is not known to wear a back brace, and it's safe to say he wasn't packing. So was the bulge under his well-tailored jacket a hidden receiver, picking up transmissions from someone offstage feeding the president answers through a hidden earpiece? Did the device explain why the normally ramrod-straight president seemed hunched over during much of the debate? Bloggers are burning up their keyboards with speculation. Check out the president's peculiar behavior during the debate, they say. On several occasions, the president simply stopped speaking for an uncomfortably long time and stared ahead with an odd expression on his face. Was he listening to someone helping him with his response to a question? Even weirder was the president's strange outburst. In a peeved rejoinder to Kerry, he said, "As the politics change, his positions change. And that's not how a commander in chief acts. I, I, uh -- Let me finish -- The intelligence I looked at was the same intelligence my opponent looked at." It must be said that Bush pointed toward Lehrer as he declared "Let me finish." The green warning light was lit, signaling he had 30 seconds to, well, finish. Hot on the conspiracy trail, I tried to track down the source of the photo. None of the Bush-is-wired bloggers, however, seemed to know where the photo came from. Was it possible the bulge had been Photoshopped onto Bush's back by a lone conspiracy buff? It turns out that all of the video of the debate was recorded and sent out by Fox News, the pool broadcaster for the event. Fox sent feeds from multiple cameras to the other networks, which did their own on-air presentations and editing. To watch the debate again, I ventured to the Web site of the most sober network I could think of: C-SPAN. And sure enough, at minute 23 on the video of the debate, you can clearly see the bulge between the president's shoulder blades. Bloggers stoke the conspiracy with the claim that the Bush administration insisted on a condition that no cameras be placed behind the candidates. An official for the Commission on Presidential Debates, which set up the lecterns and microphones on the Miami stage, said the condition was indeed real, the result of negotiations by both campaigns. Yet that didn't stop Fox from setting up cameras behind Bush and Kerry. The official said that "microphones were mounted on lecterns, and the commission put no electronic devices on the president or Senator Kerry." When asked about the bulge on Bush's back, the official said, "I don't know what that was." So what was it? Jacob McKenna, a spyware expert and the owner of the Spy Store, a high-tech surveillance shop in Spokane, Wash., looked at the Bush image on his computer monitor. "There's certainly something on his back, and it appears to be electronic," he said. McKenna said that, given its shape, the bulge could be the inductor portion of a two-way push-to-talk system. McKenna noted that such a system makes use of a tiny microchip-based earplug radio that is pushed way down into the ear canal, where it is virtually invisible. He also said a weak signal could be scrambled and be undetected by another broadcaster. Mystery-bulge bloggers argue that the president may have begun using such technology earlier in his term. Because Bush is famously prone to malapropisms and reportedly dyslexic, which could make successful use of a teleprompter problematic, they say the president and his handlers may have turned to a technique often used by television reporters on remote stand-ups. A reporter tapes a story and, while on camera, plays it back into an earpiece, repeating lines just after hearing them, managing to sound spontaneous and error free. Suggestions that Bush may have using this technique stem from a D-day event in France, when a CNN broadcast appeared to pick up -- and broadcast to surprised viewers -- the sound of another voice seemingly reading Bush his lines, after which Bush repeated them. Danny Schechter, who operates the news site MediaChannel.org, and who has been doing some investigating into the wired-Bush rumors himself, said the Bush campaign has been worried of late about others picking up their radio frequencies -- notably during the Republican Convention on the day of Bush's appearance. "They had a frequency specialist stop me and ask about the frequency of my camera," Schechter said. "The Democrats weren't doing that at their convention." Repeated calls to the White House and the Bush national campaign office over a period of three days, inquiring about what the president may have been wearing on his back during the debate, and whether he had used an audio device at other events, went unreturned. So far the Kerry campaign is staying clear of this story. When called for a comment, a press officer at the Democratic National Committee claimed on Tuesday that it was "the first time" they'd ever heard of the issue. A spokeswoman at the press office of Kerry headquarters refused to permit me to talk with anyone in the campaign's research office. Several other requests for comment to the Kerry campaign's press office went unanswered. As for whether we really do have a Milli Vanilli president, the answer at this point has to be, God only knows. (Wanna see a bulge? Click here) Liberated at 1:10 p.m. | |
| Thursday, October 07, 2004 |
|
I must *look* harmless enough...
I don't know what it is that people think about me, but I am constantly stopped to get asked for directions, people start conversations with me on the LRT, etc., etc. I guess I look like I don't bite? Apparently appearances are deceiving... Anyway, I had a seven minute (yes, I timed it) conversation with a woman on the LRT yesterday. Why, you ask? She asked about my shoes (who knew $20 Payless shoes were a conversation starter?) and then proceeded to tell me her life story. And this wasn't one of those crazy-as-bat-shit loonies, it was actually what seemed to be a normal person. Then, this morning, I somehow managed to get into a conversation with some guy in my office building...this wouldn't be a particularily noteworthy event for most people, but I'm betting most of you know how anti-social I am. It took 20 minutes before I could sneak away with some excuse of a meeting... So? Do I look particulary non-threatening? Talkative? What?!? Sigh. Liberated at 10:14 a.m. | |
| Tuesday, October 05, 2004 |
|
I feel like an ostrich
That about sums it up. Liberated at 4:55 p.m. | |
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