2009 is slipping away!

Hello, friends. Christmas is over, but it's not the new year yet, which means we're enjoying the period of time I like to call the HOLIDAY SAG. You feel kind of sad that Christmas is over, you're not really that pumped for new years because you already drank and ate a ton during the last few days, and you just feel like hibernating for a week or two, at which point you could slowly ease back into things by going into work maybe 2 days a week.

Christmas was quite solid this year, and I received a lot of items I wasn't expecting, such as a brand new IPOD from the brother. I downloaded a few episodes of shows, and spent my morning commute watching "Dog the Bounty Hunter" instead of listening to coughing and snoring all around me. Such bliss! My brother and I also realized this year that we're getting old. We now get excited about gifts like a blender or new pots and pans. When we were kids, unwrapping things like a super Nintendo or barbies or Connect Four, who would've ever thought we'd get excited about kitchen gifts?

I definitely did not go shopping on Boxing Day, except to accompany my mom to Costco. If you went shopping on Boxing Day then maybe we can't be friends anymore, because I find the whole thing unnecessary, chaotic, annoying, and a sad reflection of our materialistic society. Costco was pretty solid though, although the fluorescent lights kill my eyes, and the whole place smells like new tires. My mom can be convinced into buying things fairly easily, so I scored a new board game called Party Playoff. I had friends over the other night to play it and I'm pretty sure the general consensus was that it RULED.

Mostly I spent the holidays laying on the couch, napping or reading, sometimes with a glass of wine. It was pretty solid. Yesterday I returned to Toronto, played Guitar Hero, and watched two dvd's. One was the first episode of "My So-Called Life", which I've NEVER SEEN, and the other was Jesus Camp, a really disturbing documentary about this woman who teaches kids about God, Satan, and intertwining politics and religion. I could write pages about how mad I was at her and how everything she's teaching them is wrong, but I don't think I'll get into it now.

Let me know how you're dealing with the HOLIDAY SAG!!!!

Quick little story for ya

Wowwwwww were there ever some great characters on the subway ride home today. These two completely drunk guys (who were both unabashedly drinking tall cans of Canadian) just kept remarking on various things, and making not a lot of sense. At one point, the guy with less teeth threw his beer can down, smashed it, then when the subway doors opened, he kicked it out the door and yelled, "He shoots, he scores!!!!" Then at the next station, his friend did it. They both thought they were HILARIOUS. They also kept saying each station name in a growly bear voice, which I loved. The best part was when they spotted some teens eating Doritos, and one of the drunkards gave one of the teens all the change in his pocket in exchange for one Dorito. He kept exclaiming that he loved Doritos, and acted really superior to his friend after that because his friend had gotten zero Doritos. When they finally disembarked, they just kept yelling, "TORONTOOOOOO!!" but interspersed with a few shouts of "EDMONTON!!!" here and there too. So funny.

I want snow!!!!!

Huzzah! I'm back. Internet, rejoice! This weekend was about a 7 out of 10 in terms of solidness, but I came out feeling excessively tired which I'm blaming on the grey sky and dismal feel in the city right now. Friday night was a Raptors game with a bunch of friendsicles. You can see another account here which features some details about the family sitting in front of us.

The main "small talk" question these days seems to be something about one's readiness for "the holidays." In case you're curious about my own readiness, I finished my shopping two weeks ago and everything's wrapped and already at my parents' house. I do NOT mess around when it comes to Christmas. Also, I'm all for being politically correct, but I don't think it's necessarily offensive to call Christmas by its real name. Christmas is, as far as I know, the only holiday taking place on Dec. 25th, so can't we just call it Christmas while still acknowledging that not everyone celebrates it? Oh.... we can't?

My new cellphone, the Samsung Link, has served me fairly well so far, but I still miss the smooth stylings of the old Nokia. Also, I can't totally figure out the alarm clock on the Link. I hope it continues to wake me up faithfully. I purchased my first cellphone in the summer of 2002, at Future Shop, and I remember feeling so awesome that I finally had a cellphone. It was one of those huge bulky ones with a tiny screen that was green with black writing. At that time I didn't trust the cellphone fully, and was still paying for a home phone at my apartment AS WELL AS the cellphone. Almost no one does that anymore. Right?

On Friday I took the liberty of decorating our office for Christmas The Holidays. It looks like sweet sweet nectar. There are fake plastic bells hanging near the main trays, and red lights along the back wall behind the supervisor's desks. Yesssssssss. I would've liked to wrap some monitors in wrapping paper, making them appear to be gifts instead of monitors, but people would probably just unwrap them so they could do their work.

Tonight I have to go to choir even though I'd rather get some icing and decorate all the sugar cookies I made on Saturday. The cool thing is, I can *technically* do whatever I want! I often don't eat the crusts of toast or pizza because I don't want to, and I don't have to because let's face it: I'm 29 and in charge of my own destiny. I think I'll probably still go to choir tonight and not decorate the cookies, but it makes me feel better knowing I have a choice.