Wednesday, November 29, 2006

I hate pedestrians.

Wait...before all my foot-friendly friends get all up in my face about this inflammatory comment, I'll say that I don't hate all pedestrians.

Like the lovely young couple who chose to take their baby for a stroll during the snowstorm a few days ago. Nice idea, I guess. But don't walk down the middle of the f-ing road so that whatever cars and buses do manage to get going have to swerve across the snow mound in the middle of the road, losing control of their vehicles, and nearly piling up onto the side or into each other. And for god's sake...leave the little one at home. It doesn't have to die under the wheels of a bus just because you're assholes.

And then there are the several idiots who don't realize that when it has snowed, and the roads are icy, it's really difficult for cars to stop. They may want to stop, and you may think that they must stop, but most of the time, they can't. It's physically impossible. But it is physically possible for you to pause for a moment on the corner before you leap off into the traffic. Even though the light may be going your way, luck may not be and that car/truck/bus may be.

And finally, there was the second stupid parent. Same deal as before, pushing a baby in the stroller. But this time, she was walking with the traffic. I guess some people aren't brave enough to stare into the eyes of the innocent driver who can't stop in time to save your stupid, ignorant ass. Get off the road. Keep your eyes on the cars. And use your heads...don't take any unnecessary chances with your life or your children's lives.

One more thing...I love snow. It makes everything look like this:






My house is the yellow one in the lower right corner.

Monday, November 27, 2006

Pictures are worth 1,000 words. I believe that, and I believe that I'm extremely lazy. So instead of writing about today's snow day, I'll just post photos that I took on this morning's doggy walk. If there's a yellow house in the photo, it's probably my house. Enjoy!









Saturday, November 25, 2006

Once again, another small blogpost because I'm supposed to be editing a website about voluntary human extinction. Believe me, it's less interesting than it sounds.

But I do have to write about the 2 personal trainer sessions this week. Yes, after I threw a tiny hissy fit about driving an hour each way to have my ego bruised by some jock who wanted me to perform circus tricks while setting my core, I got a new trainer. This one works at the rec centre just a few blocks from my house. This is better for me in so many ways. The only downfall is that I might run into the dreaded ex-brother-in-law (I don't know what else to call him). According to a mutual "friend" (she still talks to him, so the jury's still out on her status), he works out there quite often now. Why wouldn't he? He also lives only a few blocks away. But blessedly, I haven't run into him yet, except at the cemetary. Asshole bought a new truck, so I didn't know it was him.

The new trainer is named Kerry. She's a grandmother who has been doing personal training for 20 years. She's going to be attending the massage therapy school just down the hill from Douglas, so I'm lucky to get her before she's gone. She's amazing. She is so enthusiastic about fitness, and she used to do a lot of fitness testing. I've learned so much about myself and my fitness...all stuff that I never learned from Faux-hawk in North Van. He just made me do tricks for his own sadistic pleasure. She measured my fitness, my flexibility, my strength, and my endurance. It turns out that I'm not the feeb I thought I was. So she's designing a program for me. It will be great.

The greatest thing is the facility. All of the cardio equipment overlooks the pool which I can also use. This is good news for me because I used to swim a lot; I liked swimming. But sometime over the years, after I stopped swimmming and started getting fat and self-conscious, I stopped with the swimming. Now I'll start again.

The worst thing is also the facility, but in a different way. Kerry was explaining to me yesterday while I watched the room for ex-b-i-l. We had bumped into this old guy. Kerry whispered to me "He's one of our freebies." When I asked, she explained that memberships are free to anyone over 80. Over 80! This guy was amazing. He had passed us and was on an elliptical trainer, walking like he was on the ground. Kerry continued "That's the best and worst thing about this place. You get all kinds of people in here." As she was explaining this, this bald, angry-looking guy (not ex-b-i-l) walked behind her. He had a head tattoo in the shape of a laurel ring around the top of his head. He had many other tattoos, including my favourite...the verse of some sort tattoo in script on the side of the neck. Great, I thought, they will let anyone in.

The surprising thing, though, is that I watched this guy through the rest of our session. He ended up in a conversation with this really preppy/yuppie-looking guy. It totally disrupted my prejudiced worldview. Maybe that was my biggest lesson of the day.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Today I went to the gym in North Vancouver for hopefully the last time. It was photoshoot day. The gym guy had me do even more crazy stuff on the bosu ball. Crazier that this, which I have to do for the "normal" workout. This time, I had to balance on one foot on a bosu ball and catch the medicine ball he threw at me. Alternatively, I got to stand on 2 feet on the bosu, catch the medicine ball, squat, and then two-handed throw the med ball back to him. Did I sign up for circus training? I don't think so.

On the way back, I stopped off at Timmy's on Kingsway for lunch before I went to the mag (it was one of my half days today). I was really pissed to discover that they don't have ice caps because of the stupid murky water thing. What did we do to anger the gods? How long will we have to suffer like this?

Saturday, November 18, 2006

There have been complaints (two) that I haven't been blogging lately. I could bore you with the details. It would go something like this: work...bitch, bitch, bitch; school...bitch, bitch, bitch. But that would be neither amusing nor interesting.

So instead, I will placate you all with this tiny entry. I will be so lazy as to direct you elsewhere for your entertainment, a website that I had heard about a while ago, but then forgot until JNads and I were messenging about homework late on a Saturday night. (Weep for us.) He mentioned one of his mantras: "look for the bullshit loophole" when we were discussing essay writing strategies.

When he said it, it immediately went into my mental storage file for the series of t-shirts I hope to make one day, perhaps as a fundraising activity for school. I think it will fit in nicely with "goals are stupid" and "everybody edits". Anyhow, this is the website. It puts a smile on my face, and I hope it puts one on yours. Especially you, EvilXine...it might be a nice alternative to knitting.