Mariah Carey "All I Want For Christmas Is You" (Dancing With An iPod In Public)

Merry Christmas!

C'mon, dude. Make yourself seen.

6:15 p.m. today. Dark. Eastbound on Hastings Street in Burnaby. Dark. A guy riding a bike in the curb lane. Dark. He's wearing black clothing. Dark. No lights or reflectors. Dark. No helmet. Dark. Idiot.

(The Customer Is) Not Always Right

Two stories I enjoyed from notalwaysright.com:

• Fighting Ignorance With Ignorance
• Friends In Unusual Places

Vancouver SkyTrain Map, Mario-Style

From Dave's Geeky Ideas. Click the image to enlarge it.

No higher than 23°C all week

An upside to this Lower Mainland summer: being able to go for a comfortable mid-afternoon one-hour-and-twenty-minute run next to Coquitlam River.

A downside to this Lower Mainland summer: not having any urge whatsoever to go tubing on said river.

Two weeks ago Biscotti was driving about two blocks away from our house when she had to swerve to avoid a black bear that ran across the road and into the woods. A few days later I was home alone and out the window I saw what looked like a big dog walking along the sidewalk across the street. I quickly realized that it was much larger than any dog I'd seen around here, and no owner had yet come into view, so up from the couch and away to the window I flew like a flash. It was a bear. It was definitely a big black bear. Biscotti says that the bear she saw was smallish, probably a cub, but the one I saw was quite large - yes, bigger than a breadbox - so we had to have seen different bears.

missing

MISSING

poker

last seen with friends many many months ago.
if you spot it please call me.
thanks.

Shaq is funny

Basketball player Shaquille O'Neal retired from the NBA recently. He has always amused me, both on and off the court, and my favourite Shaq story is actually a story he told on one of the latenight talk shows (I can't remember which). Talking about his physical size and the size of his vehicle, he told the show's host that when he wants to go to a restaurant or shopping, there are rarely any parking spaces on that block that are large enough for him to park in. So what he does is park as close as he can, which is usually several blocks away, and then stands on a street corner. It doesn't take long for someone driving by to recognize him and subsequently ask for an autograph. Shaq tells them sure, but only if they drive him to where he wants to go! The autograph seeker is suddenly giving Shaq a ride in a vehicle that is probably much, much smaller than Shaq's vehicle. Fantastic.

Calmly call me

We moved into our new place just under two years ago. At one point since the move-in, we removed an ugly curtain that was covering an odd-shaped window in the living room. It's a vaulted ceiling, so the window is high up (above the wall-sized window) and in the shape of a triangle. The curtain removal was done because we planned on replacing it shortly thereafter with more functional and aesthetically pleasing blinds of some sort. We liked the idea of letting light in through that window, but wanted the option of not letting light in through that window, ya know?

With no window covering, there was also privacy issues. Because of the window's location, people on the sidewalk and/or road could look into our second floor. After procrastinating too long, and with summer fast approaching which means days staying lighter later, we finally made an appointment with Home Depot. Someone would come to our house, we'd chat with said someone about what we wanted, we'd say 'pimp our window', and everything would fall (up) into place. Or so we thought.

The appointment was for Tuesday, May 3, 2011. The day before she cancelled and rescheduled for Thursday the 5th. No big deal, we were both free that day; we both wanted to see what the options were and have input. We had already sent her the window's shape, measurements, and the style of blinds we were looking for - something vertical, dark, and probably solid wood, because when we want the light to be blocked, we want the light to be mothertrucking blocked.

She arrived on time and I mistook that as a good sign. Biscotti engaged her in the obligatory chitchat and that went on. And on. And on. I sat quietly, waiting for the topic of the visit's purpose to arise. It finally did, and she barely did anything. After quickly ascertaining that she wouldn't be able to get accurate measurements due to the window's elevated location (uhhh, we already sent you that), she did some rough guesstimations, found out what style we wanted, told us she'd now go suss out what our best options were for what the market has available, and she'd be in touch.

That was on Thursday, May 5, 2011. It is now past 10 p.m. on Friday, May 20, 2011. It has been two weeks and a day. We have not heard a thing. Monday is a holiday (Victoria Day!) which makes this the start of a long weekend. I doubt we'll hear anything before Tuesday, which will bring us to three weeks from our original cancelled appointment and 19 days from our actual appointment. A little help, Home Depot?

I'd like to clean your face with my fists

Seriously? You're gonna make a verbal complaint about that? Let's recap. You entered and used a public bathroom. I repeat, a public bathroom. Some public bathrooms can be found in a less-than-appealing state, but this bathroom, at this time, was clean. The toilet was clean. The floor was clean. The walls were clean. Everything was clean. I presume you did your business then went to wash your hands. There was a bit of water on the counter around the sink. You then exit the bathroom and take the time to go out of your way to find a staff member to whom you remark, and I quote exactly, "the bathroom could use some attention". It's a public bathroom for crying out loud! You're a big boy - I think you can put up with a bit of water on the counter without making a fuss about it.

The staff member happened to be standing next to a boss who was being a dick about the exact same thing. The both of you can fuck off.

run pizza hockey

This morning's run started out great. The weather was ideal for running and my body felt good, especially my legs, which have been a tad fatigued lately. About 15 minutes in, I started getting a bit warm. While the local temperature has been gradually increasing, it still seemed like wearing my running pants and long-sleeved shirt was the best option. No, too warm. But I could fight through that. However, at about the 30-minute mark my belly got punched. Yesterday evening at work I succumbed to my hunger and got two slices of pizza. I should've stuck with one, if any. Because at the 30-minute mark, those two slices hit me hard. Overheated and belly-punched by pizza, I couldn't continue, and for the first time in a long time I cut my run short. There are only eight more days - and three more runs - before the Sun Run happens, and I have a time-goal that I want to be under. Therefore, no more pizza before Sunday. Then, after the Sun Run, it can be a pizza-fest as I watch game three of the Canucks/Blackhawks series. Playoff hockey is just two sleeps away!

AC(C)EMMNSU = 8(9)

1. Australia
2. Canada
3. England
4. Malaysia
5. Mexico
6. New Zealand
7. Scotland
8. United States of America

Two more to hit double digits. But if we're including countries where layovers were had and we never left the airport, then add China, where I've spent approximately five hours in total.

No text

Cocktail Hour: Latin Crooners

To the person who was looking for the Cocktail Hour: Latin Crooners CD last night: I found it just a few minutes after you left. Call me.

Stop Podcasting Yourself 155

This afternoon I listened to the latest Stop Podcasting Yourself episode while walking the dogs through the trails and by the river as light rain fell. I've only listened to the last few episodes (there's one episode a week), and this one was my favourite by far. Why wasn't I turned on to this podcast earlier? Whyyyy?! One of the hosts is Graham Clark - Biscotti and I have seen him do standup comedy a few times around Vancouver. He was featured on the NBC show "Last Comic Standing". He's funny. I don't know who Dave Shumka is, but he's funny too.

Click here for this week's episode featuring Alicia Tobin.

Once upon a tweet

I joined Twitter a long time ago. I stayed with it long enough to post 245 tweets (mostly inane stuff, and a significant amount aimed at - or replies to - a couple of people), with the most recent one being on May 2, 2010. From May 12, 2010, until today, 25 Twitter users have signed up to follow me. Why?! Is it based on past tweets that struck a chord with them? Did a past tweet have synergy with a product they're selling? The thing is, more than 50 million tweets are posted every single day (source), so surely there must be something more recent and relevant than anything I ever posted that could help my newest followers. Maybe the new followers simply liked my background - a wallpapered image of my dogs. Okay, but they'd first have to be on my page, and what would have brought them there? My ten-month-old declaration that green grapes are delicious?

Valentine's Day 2011

Yesterday was Valentine's Day. Biscotti and I had an enjoyable, low-key evening. Our children spent time with their maternal grandparents as the two of us went for dinner just the two of us, which is a rare event. We usually have either the kids or other friends/family with us, or both. After dinner we picked up the monkeys, took them home, tucked them in bed, then watched last night's How I Met Your Mother before firing up some first-season episodes of Glee. We watched all 3 episodes from disc 3 while heavy rain and thunder and lightning occurred outside. At 1 a.m. it was time to hit the sack.

My alarm was set for 7:45 this morning, allowing me time to get up and leave the house for a run before 8:25. I finally stood up at 8:07, and was putting on my running underpants when I realized it was garbage and recycling day, which meant putting our junk curbside by 7 a.m. - oops! I sped things up and was carrying the recycling to the curb as the truck was two houses from reaching us - phew! The garbage truck always comes a couple of hours later, so that was fine. The run was a Bellini-and-ribs heavy one, and there were many broken branches and a few downed trees cluttering the trails (oh right, that storm the night before), but I still managed to keep my time-to-distance ratio (also known as my pace, I guess) respectable.

The shooting of John T. Williams by Seattle police officer Ian Birk

On August 30, 2010, a man from British Columbia was shot and killed by a Seattle police officer. 50-year-old John T. Williams "was a member of the Ditidaht First Nation, also a member nation of the Nuu-Chah-Nulth. The Ditidaht First Nation is a small, remote community on the west coast of Vancouver Island" (source). The police officer was Ian Birk. Here is Seattle police spokeswoman Renee Witt on the same day of the shooting:



A video taken from inside Birk's patrol car was released on December 17, 2010. Here it is (Williams appears at 0:51 and the audio begins at 1:03):



The two videos and their discrepancies speak for themselves, but I'll add that Williams was hearing impaired.

Marathon Quest 250 is over

Do you remember this post about the Albertan who planned to run 250 marathons in 2010 with hopes of raising $250,000 for Right to Play? Well, he did run number 250 on New Year's Eve, but fell a little short of his money goal. I am in awe of his accomplishment.