Platform 327

Yeah, I know this has been blogged, YouTubed and FaceBooked to death, but here it is again.

“She’s not a journalist anymore, is she?” Fuck off. She’s the only one on that show that IS a journalist and not just a talking head. I wish her idiot colleagues had just shut up, moved on and let her read the real news. Hell, in my perfect Canada, the country’s news agencies wouldn’t mention that rich bimbo’s name until she did something worthwhile or died. Not just that one, but all those like her. I’d watch a news service that didn’t waste time on celebrities, sports, and the glorification of serial killers. There’s no news left on the news.

Went to the allergist yesterday. On top of all the other crap that’s going on health-wise, it turns out I’ve also developed some allergies. The usual pollen, ragweed, grass, trees, dust and dust mites stuff, along with coffee, chocolate, and… one other thing I don’t remember. Glad I kept the list. It’s gonna take a while to memorize all that.

I also had some “milder” reactions to other things, including cat. He said I should be fine as long as I keep my cat out of my bedroom… and seeing as I live in a bachelor apartment, I don’t have a bedroom. Could be a problem. I’m gonna shell out some dough for an air filter (even without the cat, I live in an older apartment building with dust and moulds galore) and see what happens. It’ll also be time to take kitty to the vet again and see how she’s doing health-wise. The vet said she wouldn’t live a year, but she’s 11 months old now and still terrorizing me.

So yeah… I’m getting old. Bleh.

These stats from the Toronto Public Library’s DVD collection:

Casino Royale
Number of copies: 106
Number of holds: 708

X-Men: The Last Stand
Number of copies: 100
Number of holds: 840

Spider-Man 2
Number of copies: 90
Number of holds: 121

Superman Returns
Number of copies: 2
Number of holds: 0

Yup, Superman sucked.

This was emailed to me, and I just had to share it.

Some of you might remember me saying, after I canceled my cable service, that I would never pay money to have commercials pumped into my house again. Well, now it seems I won’t have time.

Wendi got me hooked on Zip. I would have to say that this is the best thing ever (and yes, it does preempt my previous best-thing-ever, the personalized M&Ms, which I still have to get one day). In 2 days, I’ve already got over 400 movies and TV shows on my list of stuff to watch. It’s a good thing they only send 3 discs at a time, or I’d likely lock myself in my house for a year, emerging only every few weeks to replace another burned-out DVD player. This weekend, I have Alien vs. Predator, The Day After Tomorrow, and a documentary on Alexander the Great to watch. None of this stuff was at the top of my list, mind you, but I’m guessing us newbies get the crap on our lists until they’re sure we actually can be trusted to return discs. Hell, even the crap on my list is better than 90% of the TV I watched on cable just because there was “nothing else on.” And not a Tampax commercial in the lot.

Take that, Rogers.

Oh, and speaking of Wendi, we’re getting close to being together for 6 months. How the hell did that happen?

I’m not captioning Sid and Nancy after all. I want to see that movie at some point, but as a caption job it’s a pain in the ass. Have you ever tried to pay close attention to what a bunch of American actors playing British drug addicts are saying? “Oi, wot eew noggle grot, hey?” Yeesh.

Luckily there’s someone at work here that likes captioning “those bloody pommies,” and hates war documentaries, so we switched. Now I gets to watch stuff git blowed up real good.

So I guess I’ll give a quick recap of what happened on the weekend.

On Saturday, my parents and Wendi were in town. My dad wanted to take a bus tour around the city, So I suggested we take the Hippo. If you’ve been downtown in the summer in the last few years, you’ve probably seen the thing. It’s a big yellow bus that looks like a boat on wheels. That’s pretty much what it is. The tour went through the downtown core, taking in the usual sights. Then we went down to the lake and the bus drove into the water, taking us around the western harbour past Ontario Place. Fun stuff. Did you know we had cormorants in Toronto? I didn’t. I thought we just had pigeons, gulls, and a few other garbage-feeding birds. The tour was fun and educational. Afterwards, it was off to my place and a big crockpot full of my famous provencal vegetable stew.

Sunday was kinda crappy weatherwise, so Wendi and I spent the day using up some Indigo coupons I had lying around. I got one book. She got seven or eight. Wendi also got a new life jacket that she will use in this weekend’s dragon-boat races in Port Credit. After that, the evening was spent getting rained upon on a patio with

michaelcool

. Discovered a rather tasty orange-peel ale. Can’t remember who brews it, though.

And Monday, I bought my stereo. But you already knew that. Today I listened to it for a very long time. It makes me happy. Oh, and I started playing Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy on my Playstation Deux. I’d seen reviews for this game and thought it’d be something fun to pick up if I found it for cheap. Well, I found it for cheap, and it is fun. I can see myself losing a few days to that one.

Also today, I finished captioning Beverly Hills Ninja, and started on Sid and Nancy. It’s nice to do something other than banal reality/talk shows once in a while. Plus, having never seen these movies before, they’re a couple more I can cross off my list. Not that I would have made an effort to see Beverly Hills Ninja, but it wasn’t so bad to watch when I’m getting paid for it.

I’m livin’ it. The consolidation loan I got for my credit cards was a bit more than my debt, so I made a very bad financial decision and splurged on this little number. It’s been a while since I’ve had a good stereo, and the clock radio just wasn’t cutting it. The Bose was pricey, but hopefully it’ll last a few years… a few years longer than my old JVC Kaboom! system anyway, may it rest in pieces.

To offset the damage, I’m going to increase my loan payments over the next few months to cover the amount of the stereo, pay things off a bit faster. In the mean time, I’m rockin’ out to some kick-ass tunes.