Non-Denominational Holiday Cheer

If you hadn't noticed I've been away from the blog for a while now. For a few reasons, none of which have anything to do with nothing to say. I'm always thinking about stuff I'd like to say, it's just getting to the computer that's the hard part. The holidays haven't helped either with my brother-in-law occupying my computer most of the time.

But it's been a pretty good holiday season so far. It was a little short on the usual cheer at first but I quickly got into the usual swing. It's funny that ever since I stopped working at Toys R Us I've been surprised as the season snuck up on me. I love Christmas much more now that it has nothing to do with my job I must say. In fact I can remember waiting impatiently for the winter semester to start so that I could get back to school and relax. Now that was truly sick.

The weather has been truly amazing here. No white christmas for us, and oddly no one seems really sad about it. I'm personally not a huge fan of the white stuff so it's all good, and freezing your ass off while you run around shopping definitely contributes to my holiday stress.

My sister, her husband, and her infant son showed up about a week before Christmas and their visit went well. The baby Zane, was a lot friendlier and happier than he was last time he visited. He spent most of his days being passed around from one person to another smiling most of the time. He woke up crying in the middle of the night a few times, but it didn't really affect me as I was still up anyways. My sister spent most of her time being neurotic and paranoid about her son, but I guess that's what happens to first time parents. It's hard to imagine how anyone from my generation survived childhood without all this safety stuff, and the mass of advice that's available on child rearing.

The early to bed parent responsible sister is a new one for me. I'm used to her going out with her friends every night when she visits and getting hammered, but I think she went out only once in the afternoon. My brother-in-law is a great guy and when my sister wasn't bossing him around he was inevitably playing games on my computer. That's all fine and well, but he should know that that's my job around here.

Even the shopping was a breeze. I really don't have that many people to buy for as my friends and I have never been in the habit of exchanging presents. I'm thinking maybe we should, just to bring us together. Didn't have a lot of contact with them this season, and it would have been none if I hadn't organized a small dinner at the Louisiana Purchase. A very excellent restaurant that serves a very excellent German wine that I can't remember the name of now. It was a nice occasion, but it kind of sucked that everyone had to go their seperate ways so early.

Anyways, back to the present buying. With only a few little hints and nudges I was able to pick up quite a few things early which takes a lot of the panic away. Then one day we packed up everyone and headed to the Big Mall for some marathon shopping. It wasn't too crowded when we went and I managed to pick up everything that I wanted to get for people. I don't really let the stress get to me, and I'm always amazed and disgusted to see people running around frantically with short tempers. Bitching because you have to wait in line for five minutes is never going to solve anything. The only worry I had was that Shani would spend all of her money on gifts for everyone. I needn't have worried though as of course she did.

The only small problem with the shopping is that pretty well all my gifts to Shani were of the boring household kind. She really needs that kind of stuff, but I'm the type of person who likes to give away exciting gifts. So when I picked her up from work on Saturday we went shopping at the less big Southgate mall. Very packed but I just took my time and wandered around. The personal gift problem was solved fairly easy at La Senza, and that's enough said about that. Can't be too sure of who's reading this. My brother-in-law asked me if I had a blog and I vaguely answered him saying that my blog was fairly boring and pedestrian so that he wouldn't want to read it. What a lie that was.

Christmas Eve was nice as some of us set out to see some pretty lights somewhere. My sister of course was excited about her son seeing the lights for his first Christmas. Well Bright Nights at Hawrelak park was out of the question as the line of cars was very long, so we headed to Candy Cane lane; an area of the city where most of the residents decorate their homes. Again it was pretty busy, and we spent some time driving very slowly down the street. On one was too impressed so I pulled out and we headed home. As it turns out we were still a little way from the good stuff, but it didn't really matter as the baby spent the whole time sleeping in the car.
We spent the rest of the evening visiting, and playing some cards.

I had way too much Coke to drink so after everyone went to bed I stayed up watching A Christmas Carol that had Patrick Stewart in it, and then the Angel episode where he gets turned into a puppet. It had been a pretty busy week filled with people so it was nice just to sit back by myself, and watch the pretty lights on the tree for a while.

Christmas day was presents, presents, presents. Much unwrapping and picture taking was done. Everyone seemed happy with what they received except for my Dad who possibly broke his computer installing his new DVD burner. Even the baby seemed really happy with his million presents, but I think he would have been happy with anything he could've banged the crap out of. I had a nap in the afternoon and oddly we had no visitors. Usually my family has a few people popping in and out during the day but it was pretty quiet. Everyone seemed either a little tired or grumpy that day, but that might have been just me. We didn't get to hang out and play games all night after supper like we usually do either. My sister's flight was leaving very early the next day so they had to hit the sack. Strangely for me I felt sad as I knew I would miss them and the little baby. The thought of him growing up away from us made me feel a little forlorn. Not sure what that's about, but hopefully it's not what you think.

Boxing Day was insane. Plain and simple. Don't go shopping on Boxing Day at South Commons. The place is a rat's nest at the best of times. Today was worse.

Well that's about it for today. I was going to wade in to the whole "Happy Holidays" versus "Merry Christmas" debate, but I've babbled on too long already.

So in closing I hope everyone had an amazing Holiday and good night.

The Gong Show

I guess since I'm writing here I must have survived my freezing ordeal of last week. I know that a lot of people work outside during the winter and that I shouldn't complain too much, but in case you didn't know I'm a complete wimp. Especially when it comes to temperature extremes. I'm really looking forward to the day when people can live in a mall so they never have to go outside.

So anyways last Tuesday I got up in the early frosty gloom to brave the very icy highway to head to work. I knew what was going to happen, and I wasn't disappointed when I arrived there and my foreman said we wouldn't be working because it was so cold. It was a mixture of relief and annoyance as part of me just wanted to get the stupid job done while the other part craved more sleep. So I ended up napping that day and further screwing my sleep schedule up.

We actually worked Wednesday. Even with one of our small crew sick we managed to finish over half the job that some people had estimated would take two weeks. It was a little strange though how energetic I felt that evening even despite the lack of sleep. No doubt it was my body starting to revive itself from it's long term lethargy. Thursday we also worked, and we finished up the main part of the job easily. I pushed for getting everything done that day, but I was overruled so we spent a lot of time just puttering around.

Friday morning we messed around some more in the morning before we finished. I was very exhausted from having only five hours of sleep, five nights in a row. That might not be such a big deal for some people but it definitely doesn't work for me. So I couldn't resist napping, and I realy wish I hadn't because it didn't seem very restful. I had a few really strange dreams including one where I was on a tour of a local company that some friends work at. Of course it wasn't the real building I was touring, but some kind of nightmarish funhouse where people ended up trying to kill me (no one I know). I usually don't remember a lot of details from dreams, but I know I ended up at one point fighting a billboard with a crossbow. Personally I blame the violent video games.

That night since my Dad was back in town we headed out for supper at the Olive Garden. I was still sleepwaling so it was a fairly quiet affair. Despite my earlier nap I fell asleep in the p.m.

The next day was the continuation of our new D&D game. It went alright, but the D.M. has already started to show signs of his excessive nature. He's one of those people who always figures that more is better, and that he needs to toss everything at the players right away. I kind of fell out of the roleplaying mood near the end as my stomach began to experience acute pain. I didn't need to be a doctor to figure out why either as I had earlier drunk one litre of light egg nog. I really love egg nog, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that it's probably not a good idea to drink so much in one sitting.

So when Shani showed up after her cookie exchange I probably should have cancelled our plans to instead go back to my place, but I didn't do that. Bringing my friend Paul along we headed out for supper after which we were going to see The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Still in pain I didn't eat much, getting most of my food wrapped up.

The next part is probably going to get me tied to a stone tablet and sacrificed by my fantasy loving friends, but I was really not blown away by the movie. My inner child might have been slain by indigestion, but the parts that had other people in tears really didn't move me. Part of it no doubt was that I knew the story and the other part was probably subconscious resistance to the religious messages. While I also knew the Lord of the Rings story before I saw the movies they were so much more visual that it was a delight to see the words in action.

There was some excellent parts near the beginning with the four children all together and their interactions, and the scene where Lucy meets Mr. Tumnus for the first time stands out as a highlight for me. Definitely not a bad movie though. I'll probably have to see it again without stomach pain to form a more objective opinion.

Sunday night was Shani's live Werewolf game which ended up being played at one of the player's houses because of a site conflict. The game went well with the main focus of it on the challenge for the five Alphas of the city to pick one High Alpha. My character Roman is one of these Alphas and if I learned anything it's that other people in the city really don't like my character. I seem to have the "can make enemies really well, and have people hate him" part of live roleplaying down. Now I just need to work on the getting people to like me part.

The next game that's coming up is a Fallen Angels game set in Arthurian times. It sounds pretty cool already, and no doubt it would give me a good opportunity to play a good character as one of the shining nights of the Round Table. Yep that's what I should do alright, play a good guy. Who am I kidding though? The lure of the dark side is too powerful for me.

The Joys of Winter

Wheee. There's nothing more fun than getting up at 6 a.m. on a very blizzardy monday morning to drive through treacherous conditions to a job site where you'll have to freeze your ass off. In case nobody can tell I'm being sarcastic and unfortunately I experienced this exact joy this morning.

To fill in the backstory the Company that I worked for called my house on Friday afternoon. This is the same company that hasn't called me for any work in about 2 1/2 months. I had figured the construction season was winding down, but apparently I was wrong. Anyways they called looking for my Dad, but he was out of town working for a different company. So I spoke to the big boss and he asked if I could return back to the same site that I had worked at a couple of months ago. I think mainly they asked because it was easier for them. Every plant work site has a really boring orientation and test you have to go through before you can work there. Most of it's common sense, but I guess they have to cover their ass. I had already gone though the orientation so they wouldn't need need to waste time waiting while someone else got trained.

It turns out though that we had the time to waste this morning as we sat around in the trailer waiting for stuff to get organized so that we could start working. This disorganization appears to be the norm for the construction biz, and I cringe at the thought of all the money wasted. Then as it turns out there was to be no work because someone had neglected to send dust filters for our masks which we needed to enter the furnace where our work was supposed to be taking place. We poked around for a little bit, set a few things up, listened to a guy complain that they should have heaters inside of there (a good idea in my opinion, but a little impractical), and then we went home. So I probably shouldn't complain too much as I really was only expsed to the weather briefly. To top the disorganization off, no one really has any idea how long this job is supposed to take. I heard a week from the big boss while someone said they thought it would be about two weeks. After looking at the job though the Foreman said it should only take 3 days at the max. Guess which estimate I'm hoping for.

Back to my weekend though and happier topics. Because my dad was away I decided to take my mom out for dinner and a movie with Shani and my sister as well. Of course I completely forgot about the Infernal wake that some players from Paradise were having at Jekyl's that night. For dinner I had decided on the new greek restaurant that had opened on the southside here recently, Koutouki's Taverna. It's a somewhat famous place already as it's opening was featured in a show on the Food Network called Family Restaurant. I never watched it, but I guess it was one of those kind of reality shows about the hurdles of opening a restaurant.

The building it is in now used to be a Smitty's, but you could never tell it now. It's decorated very beautifully, and it reeks of greek ambience. The food was pretty good as well, with most of us at the table agreeing that we preferred Yiannis more. I guess they still had to pay a lot for all the frills as the food was pretty pricey. It seemed like you had to pay extra for every little thing. The homous was seperate from the pita forcing you to pay for both. It's just occurred to me now, but I wonder what they'd do if I went in there and just ordered the homous and then sat there eating it with my fingers. I don't mind an expensive dinner like that once in a while but some of it seemed a little unneccesary to me.

After eating we went to the theatre, where we debated about what we were going to do. My mother and sister were a little leery about seeing a movie so late so they decided to just go home. In my sister's words "the old ladies need to go home for sleep." So Shani and I saw Aeon Flux which wasn't terrible, but it wasn't so great either. Thinking about it now I'd lean more towards the terrible side.

Saturday afternoon I played D&D with the group I haven't played with for a while. The intro wasn't bad, but we'll have to wait and see how that goes. Then came Saturday evening and the much anticipated Paradise Lost game. It was an interesting game for me with a lot of the internal roleplaying going on, and a lot of the angst.

A constant song was being played over the angelic symphony that healed the emotional pain of those Fallen who were not so evil. Unfortunatly for the really evil characters like mine it caused them emotional pain. Tempest doesn't have so many bricks in his sanity wall as it is so he really couldn't afford to lose any. As a result he was grouchy, and angsty all night. This was made worse by the appearance of the stuffed monkey which was given to one of the characters by an angel. The Divine all insisted that it was harmless so to prove a point Tempest tried to destroy it with his powers. Of course the monkey couldn't be destroyed and the power got reflected back onto Tempest breaking all of his fingers backwards. Luckily a member of his murder reacted quickly calming him down with her powers or he would have flipped out. So it was a pretty ignoble defeat made worse by the amount of talk after that, that centered around the monkey. If he wasn't so calm at the time he would have started yelling at everyone to just shut up already about the monkey.

Then there was a big emotional moment with some big heartfelt talk with another character. It was either really sweet, or sad, desperate, and co-dependent. Time will tell on that I suppose. But either way it's an exciting development. Tempest is moving to the point where he's not just an evil jerk doing bad for its own sake, as he realizes that there is a real hollowness to it. He was trying everything to get the Divine to react to something he did, even if it was a negative one he would have been happy.

I should be running off to bed soon here though. I hear it's going to be even colder tomorrow. Yay!

Political Climate

Looking at my blog I realize that not only do I need to blog more because I have a lot of crap to say, but that I need to work on the format of it as well. There's some really nicely laid blogs out there that I read, and mine looks drab in comparison. I'll have to get off my lazy butt sometime and look for a new look.

Anyways what's really bothering me lately is the big news in Canadian politics. The fall of the Liberal government, and the upcoming election. Years ago I was quite interested in politics; I worked on a few election campaigns, I took a few political science courses, and I kept up to date with the current events. My interest in politics kind of died out though with the more I learned, and saw. First of all I knew that I would never have a future there, I'm nowhere near enough cutthroat or charismatic, and then I even doubted that I would want to be in office even if I could. I guess I grew cynical about the whole process as I clearly could see it's many flaws.

I took this whole election thing in stride though knowing without a doubt that I would cast my ballot. I was surprised though at the reaction's of others around me. My Mom said it was a huge waste of money and time and she had no interest in voting again. No doubt this feeling was a common one echoed across Canada when the election was called. To me it seems a small cost for living in a democracy like we do, and this kind of attitude while understandable is very sad.

It makes me think that our chances of evolving culturally as a race are very slim. Given our level of technology it seems very likely that we'll have the ability soon to abolish our representative style of democracy and adopt a true form of democracy where everyone can vote on every issue and assume ownership of their future. Doesn't seem too likely at this stage of the game with such high voter apathy, and people's unwillingness to inform themselves on the issues. I'd definitely lump myself in the ignorant catgeory as I seldom take the time to catch up on this stuff. But I disgress as I like to do occasionally.

Back to the topic at hand I can say that while I definitely support the election once called I don't at all agree with the reason for it. In my opinion it was a move made for the sake of more power by the Conservatives and the New Democrats. I could be wrong, and Jack Layton the leader of the N.D.P. could have truly felt that the Liberals were corrupt and that he was helping Canada, but I doubt it. In my mind that whole corruption excuse is moot because the current party is not the same party that it was in those times. We had an election since then and the Liberals, and Paul Martin won by a small majority. In addition Paul Martin was cleared of any misdeeds by an exhaustive inquiry, and those responsible have been punished. I'm not so naive to believe that the whole truth was revealed, but it was as much truth as we're ever going to see.

Perhaps I'm wrong, perhaps the Liberal party should be crushed for that mistake. Crushed till they no longer exist, or till we get a new scandal from the current party in charge.

I'm not a big Liberal booster by any means, and I realize that Canadians should be angry with them for what happened, but I'm afraid I see little alternative coming up. I don't agree with the views of the New Democrats on a political level, and on a personal level I don't like Stephen Harper and the Conservatives. Plus his platform of reducing the G.S.T. sounds pretty lame to me at this point. Hopefully all the oppostion parties can come up with more ideas than "we need to clean up government". It's a noble goal, but if we have to go to all the trouble of voting again it should be about some important issues.

...or maybe it really doesn't matter, and no matter who wins we'll end up with the same government. *sigh*