Saturday, April 30, 2005

I think I have a problem.

After yet another trip to Big Al's today, we determined that we've spent about $2,500 between both of us in the past 18 months or so on our little fish 'addiction'. Yes, that's right...$2,500 in a year and a half. This has resulted in 6 tanks (with a seventh on the way), with an indeterminate amount fish, filters, heaters, aquarium bulbs, decor, aquatic plants, substrates, etc., etc.

In related news, I just spent the past five minutes riffling through my dirty laundry so I could find enough change to pay the pizza guy.

.

Liberated at 3:21 p.m.

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Wednesday, April 27, 2005

I suppose that you get what you pay for...

I have just discovered that all of my comments older than four months have completely disappeared. I just spent 10 minutes flipping through my archives, confronted with posts upon posts of '0 Comments'. This makes me sad...

I went to the Haloscan website only to discover they will display comments for only four months unless you're a premium member. The best part? They still have the comments archived, but you can't have them unless you pay up. They're holding my comments hostage...*sniffle*

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Liberated at 3:38 p.m.

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uncharted's 5 Rules of Transit Etiquette

Well, today is hump day, but for some reason it seems like I've already endured a whole week of transit rudeness in the past few days. To get out some frustration (and to prevent me from making good on my threat to kick the loser one cubicle over in the neckface), here are uncharted's 5 Rules of Transit Etiquette (aka: what it takes for me to successfully fight the urge to kill you if you're ever lucky enough to take an ETS jaunt with me...):

  1. Stop staring at me! Stop it! Unless I resemble some random celebrity (which I don't), am walking around with a long strand of toilet paper attached to my shoes or picking my nose (not lately, anyway), or have started staring at you first...I see no reason why I am that captivating. None. There is a reason that there are advertisements on train cars and in buses...so that, if you have an insatiable urge to stare, you can become a corporate whore instead of creeping out the person across from you. If you stare at me long enough, I will start haunting you in your dreams. Do you want that? No, I didn't think so.
  2. If you insist on talking about the amazing sex you had last night, or the awesome tattoo that you're getting next week (a big lettered "CRUNK" written across the chest with...[drum roll, please]...fake tattoo abs. Yes, unfortunately, I'm completely serious) please do so in a way that the whole car, the driver in the car next to you, and the rats underground can't hear you. Also, please refrain from lifting up your shirt to show us the "CRUNK" placement in relation to your little boy nipples.
  3. It is customary (I know, only customary...but still) to allow people to get off the train before you get on. This not only entails not stepping onto the train itself, but also not standing directly in front of the doors so that the riders who want to exit actually have the space to do so. This very simple concept seems to be completely beyond the vast majority of transit ridership...especially the early morning crowd who seem to have had their feet cemented to the ground. Failing to do this will result in a very bizarre staring contest until I lose all self-control and elbow you just above your left temple.
  4. If you and your 4 friends insist on walking all in a row, please ensure that you have not blocked off any and all exit off the platform. If you're one of those people who insists on continuing to chat with your friend standing *next* to them on the same escalator step (not one above or below), then be forewarned that I may snap at any time. Just in case anyone is unclear here...the LEFT side of the escalator is for those who'd like to make a speedy above-ground exit, the RIGHT side is for those who prefer to remain stationary and let the escalator do its thing.
  5. Unless your ass is the size of a small house, it is rude to take up 4 seats for the price of one. Assuming that you're of normal assage, sit the hell down in *one* seat and put whatever bags/purse/box of drug money you may have in your lap or at your feet. Your grocery bag of Doritos and your purse are NOT so important that they should be causing others to stand due to a lack of seating - even though I realize that if you don't have easy access to your Doritos, it will most certainly be the end of the world. Whatever has an ass should have a seat, whatever is completely and totally inanimate and will not tire from standing for the 40 minute bus ride to West Ed SHOULD NOT GET A SEAT. These are very simple rules to follow. As an addendum, just in case we aren't clear, "a seat" includes both the seat and the floor space below it. Unless I am severely lacking in certain body parts (which I very well may be, but that is another story entirely), I will need somewhere to put my legs and feet...and your lap is not an acceptable spot. Putting your stinky gym bag in the floor so that I am forced to hold up my feet for 25 minutes is not ok. As you may have already witnessed, I will eventually get tired of holding my legs in the air, and will then rest my dirty boots on your bag, leaving lovely hooker-boot-marks on the top when I leave.

From time to time, I admit that I may be a tad intolerant of people in general...but, seriously, I don't think that I'm asking too much. Perhaps I can print this up as some public service announcement and get ETS to hand them out as flyers? No? Fine, then. Did I mention that I can't wait until I get my car in August?


Liberated at 7:28 a.m.

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Sunday, April 24, 2005

Ok, I need your [prayers/non-relgious prayer equivalents]

After a fairly arduous and complex set-up process, we managed to (apparently) successfully set-up the new canister filter for my big tank in the living room today. This is my first foray into this type of filter, and I'm hoping that - despite the lack of manual - we set up the damn thing properly.

I am now about to go to bed, and am desperately hoping that there will not be 29 gallons of water flooding the tenant below me when I wake up in the morning.

.

Liberated at 11:27 p.m.

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Monday, April 18, 2005

I. Am. So. Awesome.

Seriously, I am.

Have I mentioned that recently?

Edit: I would also like to proclaim that as of 11:21 pm today, Mr. Chris Jones is officially awesome as well. Why? Well, I don't have all night to list the reasons, so you'll have to ask him directly.


Liberated at 9:01 p.m.

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Tuesday, April 12, 2005

hee!

Somebody found my blog by searching "neckface"!

I'm awesome. And so is whoever first coined the term "neckface". Hack history buffs?...I'm looking at you! Does anyone know who it was at The Gateway that actually created and applied what could have been the most fitting term ever? Anyone?

.

Liberated at 2:45 p.m.

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Monday, April 11, 2005

Lyrics, treble clefs and minor thirds...

Music often spends its time with me in a sort of chameleon-like way. It reinforces my bad mood, pumps up my good days, and, from time to time, reassures me.

My relationship with my good friend music started rather tumultuously, back when I was four. Off I went for my first Sunday lesson with Mrs. Graham, my very stern and smelly piano teacher before the enlightened days of Mrs. Finch. I absolutely hated playing when I was really young. Thinking back on it now, I think it was because my young, budding-perfectionist psyche just couldn't handle one simple fact: my hands were nowhere near big enough to span a full octave, and I was therefore rendered useless in the routine warm-up exercises that we were all forced to do. The more I think about it, that may have been my first bout of self-esteem-damaging perceived inadequacy with my peers, which continues on-and-off to this day.

Anyway, I finally evolved into a decent enough pianist by the time I was 8 or 9...despite still, and even now, having trouble spanning a full octave with my relatively small hands. At that point, however, my definition of "music" wasn't really my piano playing or my budding interest in choral music. It was, horrifyingly, my very first tape...Tiffany. Even then, music had a very transformative effect on me...I felt ever-so-grown-up with my very own tape and bright pink ghetto blaster. Man, was I ever cool... If you're ever in Winnipeg with me, remind me to show you the totally awesome grade six grad photo of me in my bright pink overalls!

For many years around that time, music itself wasn't something that I listened to for enjoyment...it was something that I did because it was a grown-up thing to do. I remember, when I was 10 or 11, I asked my Dad to bring back Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magik for me on one of his many day-trips down to North Dakota. It was promptly removed from my possession after he decided to listen to it one day. How...un-grown-up.

After that, it was still a long time before I associated music with enjoyment. Still, I didn't classify all of the singing I was doing (in various choirs, musicals, and plays) as "music"...music was still what I listened to on the pink ghetto blaster and my new prized Discman.

It is now a good 20 years since my first brush with all of those lyrics, treble clefs and minor thirds... Music has taken on a very convenient role in my life...that of reinforcer and reassurer. There are those mornings that call for soulful ballads about love lost. There are the times right before heading out to the bar that require some good, old fashioned dance tunes. Then there are those times in which that little voice in my head is drowned out by the little bud in my ear...*those* are the times when I appreciate my melodic friend the most.

I woke up this morning feeling horribly uneasy...like *something* was wrong, but I just couldn't figure out what. It was a calming, ballad-filled walk to work...

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Liberated at 12:58 p.m.

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Thursday, April 07, 2005

I need a do-over.

Can I do that? I need to go back to around the beginning of January, and then start over. There are a few things that I'd like to try again. Hindsight is 20/20, they say...

Can I? Pretty please?


Liberated at 7:57 p.m.

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Tuesday, April 05, 2005

Anniversaries

As I sit here in the middle of the night (4:03 am, to be exact) listening to the alarming number of fire trucks that have sped past my apartment tonight, it occurs to me that I have failed to mark a very important occasion. During these last few weeks of blog-avoidance, it seems that I missed the one-year anniversary of the start of my little blog. In fact, today is the one-year-and-one-month anniversary. So, perhaps very fittingly, I'll mark this occasion thinking of why I hate anniversaries...and birthdays...and all things of the sort.

The blog silence should cease rather shortly, in case anyone is curious (which you all seem to be because my traffic hasn't decreased during my absence). I've got a ton that I need to write, it's just a matter of getting it all down...

.

Liberated at 4:09 a.m.

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This blog originates in Edmonton, in the wasteland that is Alberta, in the Great White North.

uncharted@gmail.com


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