Stumbling into a Rabbit Hole

I rarely watch TV. Not that I don't watch TV shows, but I generally prefer to find a show that I like and then watch it on my own schedule on my computer or on DVD. For the past few weeks, though, TC has taken over our computer to watch every episode of The Office (a show I can't stand because it reminds me too much of work), so I've had to resort to flicking through the channels to find something interesting.

And there was a significant amount of flicking. Is it just me, or do most primetime shows that are on right now really bite? There seem to be only a few categories available:

1. Crime shows, which have become rather predictable and have therefore come to rely on being shockingly graphic or twisted. The one exception I've noticed is NCIS, which tends to pay more attention to character development instead.
2. Reality shows, which are farther from reality than most fictional shows.
3. Dramas, which are essentially evening soap operas.
4. Sitcoms, which are almost all variations of the same situation. The variation comes in the exact nature of the quirks possessed by the couple/family that are the main characters. Again, I do have an exception. TC and I both love Big Bang Theory.

And that's about it! There doesn't seem to be a lot out there, so I was thankful when I happened to stumble onto this program:

I had previously seen Tin Man, which was produced by the same people, and I highly recommend it as well.

What about you folks? Are there any shows that you would recommend to someone who's tired of the same old, same old?

PS - I feel the need to add that I only watch these shows while I'm working on some kind of craft - knitting, crocheting, embroidery and the like. Wouldn't want you to think I sit around doing nothing ;)

Unplugged

Today is the first day of 2010, and the first thing that I'm thankful for is the fact that it's a statutory holiday so I can turn off my blackberry.

One of the long term fallouts of the work craziness over the past few months is that my team is now required to carry the blackberry with us at all times, so that we're always available should an issue arise. I have received emails and phone calls during all hours of the day and/or night on this thing.

It's not a development that I'm especially fond of, so for today I'm going to revel in the fact that no one from work can reach me. I'm unplugged.

We now pause for station identification...

Hi folks. Serious lack of posting here lately, I know. And it's not going to change for quite a while I'm afraid. It's a major struggle right now to maintain some semblance of a work/life balance, and at the moment work is definitely winning. We're talking working overtime almost every day, being on call 24/7, working several weekends, not being able to fall asleep because my brain won't shut off, waking up in the middle of the night to remember something that needs to go on my to-do list ... you get the idea.

Anyhoo, I haven't even really had time to do anything interesting worth blogging about - hence the lack of posts :) And please forgive me for not commenting on all your sites. I have been reading, I promise - it's often the highlight of my day!

All of this to say, I'll be taking a blogging break, probably until December when I hope to reach the end of this nightmarish work-laden tunnel. But I will be back! And I'll still be dropping by to visit all of you.

Monkey see...

Today's laugh:

Tripping down memory lane

There's a new meme doing the rounds over on facebook - you post a comment asking your "friends" to share a memory of you, good or bad (though unless your friends are jerks, they'll probably all be good). It's been fun to revisit those events and times, though there's been an unexpected side effect. All day today random memories have been popping into my head, things I haven't thought about in years. Like...

...sitting with my friend AG on the daily trip to high school on bus #27, listening to the driver's favourite radio station that for some unknown reason always played the same 2 songs at some point on the 30 minute journey: Breakfast at Tiffany's and King of Wishful Thinking.

...driving my mum's car the wrong way up an off-ramp at 12 am (I was completely sober) on a girl's night off from camp

...watching the Captian Power movie, and the cheesiest black & white movie on the planet with CH one summer Saturday ("Darling, you've given me a reason to buy orchids again." - they just don't write dialogue like that anymore!)

...cranking the music and dancing around the kitchen with cousin KL after making stir-fry for the very first time

...TC bringing flowers to my office at university because I'd emailed him about the rough day I'd been having - and how he got in trouble with my office-mate's boyfriend for raising the bar so high by delivering them while she was there to see him do it :)

...canoeing on the ocean one night with TC, Matt & Annie, while fervently hoping that Matt wouldn't flip the canoe

...getting lost with K & S on the way to Central New Annan, NS, because the instructions said to turn right at the big red store, which had been painted blue a few days before we arrived

...playing "Shark" with all the cousins - a game where one of us had to cross from one end of my grandmother's living room to the other, while the rest of us chose positions to lay on the floor and had to try to bring that person down using only our legs. Much bruising and laughter ensued.

...spending an entire day making tiny gourmet sandwiches with CL and JW for Sherrie's pre-wedding tea

I'll stop there, but the memories keep coming! What about you folks? What's the first memory that pops into your head when you start thinking back?

Passive Agressiveness

As a self-confessed passive agressive, I can completely commiserate with the people who wrote the notes on my new favourite website, Passive Agressive Notes. For example:

Okay, so that's one's not so much passive agressive as funny, but if you're looking for a chuckle you should really check it out.

How do you argue with that?

There are very few things that annoy me more than absolute statements: "You always do that" or "That never happens." I know that when people say such things, it's usually an exaggeration for the sake of making a point. I've even been known to do it myself on occasion. But it still bugs the crap out of me, because in the back of my head I know that it's rarely true. Exceptions exist.

My darling husband is no stranger to the absolute statement, which has often been the cause of some rather lively discussions between the two of us. Last night, however, he really outdid himself. And I quote:

"It's not like we always never think of it that way."

All I could do was laugh.

I'm so proud!

Do any of these guys look familiar? I'll give you a hint - I'm married to one of them!

Yes, it's true - you're looking at TC's acting debut. My honey - the "Behemoth". The director of this commercial is connected to Massey College, so when he put out a call for extras, TC answered. Who knew I'd be married to a star? :)

(PS - Sorry for the wierd formatting. I'm not sure why it's doing that.)

Pause...

I know things have been pretty quiet over here lately. It seems that I'm in the middle of a busy cycle, both professionally and personally. I'll be posting more hopefully after next week - see you then!

Could you please repeat the question?

Because I know you've all been dying to know:

Lean = List (ie. a ship that leans is said to list)

4 = 4 (he had no system for numbers)

misterhamburgers = mistakes (mister the opposite of miss, hamburger for steak = miss+steak = mistake)

butler = made (butler the opposite of maid, maid = made)

farewell = by (farewell for bye, bye = by)

Enron = Enron (proper names, like numbers, stayed the same)

motel = in (motel for inn, inn = in)

the 1990's = the 1990's.

So: List 4 mistakes made by Enron in the 1990's.

On a completely different note, I'm super excited because my mum & dad are coming to visit sometime in April! They don't know exactly when yet, or for how long, but I'm not going to complain :) I can't wait to see them.

I was just saying to TC the other day that very recently Toronto has started to feel like a place where I could see us living for a while. We've put down roots, and connected with a wonderful community of people who mean so much to us. If only my family lived closer - it's the one thing that really, really sucks about living here (there are other things that kind of suck, but them I can deal with).

Random Memories

I don't know what prompted it, but on my way to work this morning I kept thinking about one of my high school teachers. He was a bit of an odd-ball, but then I think most high school teachers have to be if they're going to survive :)

What made him odd, other than the bizarre stories he told (my favourite involved cheap luggage and a run-in with the Russian mafia), was the fact that he created his own language, and expected his students to learn it. All of his notes and assignments were written in his language, so you learned it or you flunked. And you know what? I still remember it, or rather it's basic principles. I don't remember anything else I learned in his class, but the language I do. Here's an example of a typical assignment question:

Lean 4 misterhamburgers butler farewell Enron motel the 1990's.

Any guesses as to what that says in regular English?

Enough with the winter already!

We are now entering the time of year when it seems like spring is taking its merry time getting here. I don't know about you, but I always get a little impatient right about now and start feeling the urge to shake things up, try something new, do something to make it feel like spring is already here.

Any guesses as to what I did today? :)

Hints of Spring

I love this time of year! True, it's still -20 outside, and there isn't much greenery as of yet, but spring has begun and there's no stopping it now. How do I know that? When I woke up this morning, for the very first time this year I didn't have to turn on the lamp to see, because the sun had already risen. And then in the subway on the way to work, I was blinded by the sunshine at several points as the track went above ground. I know that will annoy the heck out of me later in the summer, but for now I rejoice in the fact that it means spring is on the way.

What about you folks? What is the first thing that "spring" to you?

Fuming

I am royally pissed off. I mean really angry - so angry I want to weep. Why, oh why, oh WHY must people wear perfume?!? TC got us tickets to a concert today, a piano duet by two of the best duetists in the world, held at the Royal Conservatory. I was excited about it, and really looked forward to an enjoyable afternoon. Things were going well - we arrived a little early, found good seats, and settled in. Then just before the concert was set to start, a woman covered in furs and fumes arrived. Her scent assaulted my nose before she even entered the row behind us for one of the few remaining seats, which happened to be right behind me.

I immediately went on the alert. Her perfume was so strong that it was actually hurting me to breathe, but I hoped beyond hope that I'd be able to make it through the performance before the full-blown allergy attack that I knew would be coming actually hit. I fanned. I breathed as shallowly as possible. I tried to discretely cover my nose when I needed to take a deeper breath. I was so focused on trying to breathe that I honestly couldn't tell you much about what the music was like.

Then I felt my right eye start to water, and I knew there was nothing I could do. At the beginning of the second piece, I started feeling the need to cough, which is how I react to perfume. Have you ever tried to keep yourself from coughing? For 30-40 minutes? It isn't pretty. Your nose runs. Your eyes stream. And depending on how desperate you are to control your cough (and I was desperate), you end up doing the coughing equivalent of a dry heave. Not that any of this actually prevented me from coughing. All it did was allow me to try and time my coughs with a louder part of the piece rather than during the silences between movements.

By the time intermission came, I felt so badly for the people sitting around me - I know how disruptive it can be to have someone coughing in your ear while you're trying to enjoy music - that I left and came home. There was no way I was going to be able to stay. Even if we sat somewhere else, the damage had already been done, and my allergies were in full swing. Before I left, though, I really wanted to find the woman and tell her what she'd done - ruining the entire concert for me, and at least partly for the people who were forced to sit and listen to me have a coughing fit. It was probably a good thing I didn't see her.

It just makes me so mad! I've heard every excuse under the sun for wearing perfume, but ultimately there is no good reason for it. If you wear perfume it's because you like to. You don't need it. It doesn't make you a better, more likeable person. It says nothing about you - nothing good, anyway. All it does is make a significant part of the population miserable whenever they go out in public because they can't breathe!!!!

So lay off the perfume!

Sarah needs...

So I had a little down time at work this afternoon, and decided to fill that time by following the examples of a few blogs that I had read. I then proceded to laugh myself silly. Here's how it works - just search for the phrase "[your name] needs" in google and write down the first 10 that pop up. Apparently I need...

...a cold shower, self-esteem. I'm not sure how those are related.
...more love lyrics. It's true! More love lyrics never hurt anyone.
...sponsors to compete. I suppose if I were competing that would be true.
...a miracle. Don't we all?
...a band. That would certainly help with #2!
...to swim. You know, I haven't been swimming in more than 2 years. Maybe it's a sign.
...her own set. I'm going to let you all decide what I need my own set of.
...a Wii. Woo hoo!
...to get her life back and establish herself as the person in charge. That's intense.
...to hand him one of those weapons that went off without warning. Is that how I get my life back and establish myself as the person in charge? Seems a little violent...

Well, there you have it folks. I now know exactly what I need. Funny it didn't mention anything about sleep, or groceries, or toothpaste - I'm pretty sure I need those too. Oh well, I suppose I shouldn't be greedy :)

Here we go again...

It seems that the flu viruses making their rounds this year have decided that I am an optimal host. Things may be pretty quiet over here for the next little while until I can fight this one off. Here's hoping it won't take that long!

Welcome back, Telly!

And that concludes our non-television experiment.

Yep, we have admitted defeat - at least for now. TC is sick. We have therefore plugged the cable back in so that he'll have something to watch while he's laying on the couch without having to fork out the moola to rent movies (our cable is included in our rent, so there's no additional charge for having it plugged in).

We may try again once he's feeling better, but for now I'm enjoying my NCIS and Whose Line is it Anyway? :)

See you later, Telly!

TC has decided that we are going TV-less this week. It all started on Friday night, as we did some rearranging in our living room in order to make room for a craft night that I was hosting. We needed more space for chairs, and TC discovered that our TV fits perfectly inside our coat closet, which is located in the living room.

Initially, we toyed with the idea of leaving it in there, since there's a plug and everything (a plug in the coat closet is a bit wierd, but that's one of the perks of living in an old house - you never know what you're going to find) but the space is more valuable to us as storage for the 4 big rubbermaid tubs that hold all my crafting/soap-making supplies so the TV came back out to it's original position.

The cable, however, has not been plugged back in which leaves us with 1/2 of a channel (we kind of get CTV). And TC decided that it will stay that way for the rest of the week, so that we won't have the option of just turning the TV on and flipping through channels when we're looking for something to do.

That's not to say that we're shutting it down completely, though. DVD's are still allowed, because watching a DVD tends to be more of a deliberate choice rather than a default position. It hasn't been too bad so far. I've done a bit more reading, and have listened to the radio more than I usually do. The only thing I miss is being able to check the temperature and weather before walking out the door - but I suppose I could always go low-tech and just look out the window...

I can't wait to have a house...

So you've probably noticed the lack of pictures around here lately. Part of the reason for it is that we no longer have internet access at home, so I would have to take our camera in to work and download the pictures onto my computer there if I wanted to post them online. The other part of the reason is that I'm too lazy to do so :)

Why, you may be asking, are we now internet-less? Apparently our landlord decided to nix the free wireless internet connection that's supposed to come with our apartment without telling us that he was going to do so. That's not entirely true - he didn't nix the whole thing, he just put a password on it and didn't tell us what it is. We are somewhat put out, since we were told when we agreed to live in this apartment that internet access was included.

It may all be a simple misunderstanding, as we haven't actually had the chance to talk to our landlord yet, but he's pulled stuff like this before (like not turning the heat on when it was 9 degrees in the apartment back in October because "it will warm up soon"), so I'm thinking it's deliberate. He came to our door the other night, and TC was going to mention it, but he was there to give us a belated Christmas present, so TC didn't want to ruin the warmfuzziness of the moment.

As far as I see it, our landlord has 2 options: 1) Give us the password so we can use the internet connection that we've been using for the past 2 years, or 2) Decrease our rent, since the amount we agreed on is based on the inclusion of free internet. Does that sound fair?

All I Want For Christmas...

...is an office linebacker. Please, Santa, please?

This post is dedicated to anyone who has ever worked in an office environment.