Monday, August 08, 2005

Myth Busters

I havent left my apartment in a few days, well that isent totally true, but I havent left the building in a few days. There are many people whom I enjoy within these walls, and also there is food in my cupboard so I wont go hungry, not to be confused with Hungary, which sends a great deal of wine to Calgary and almost all of it ends up at a store I work at. Anyways, I have noticed lately that I have been deriving a great deal of the drama that I so desire out of life from shows that have recently aired on TV. I have been watching a show titled Scrubs starring Zach Braff, star and author of "Garden State" a glorious and moving movie. Anyways, this TV show is about these doctors who are in thier first few years of becoming doctors. Its a great show, not only for the writing and the acting, but for the fact that is a comedy, and there is no laugh track. I really dont like laugh tracks, ie. Friends. I liked the show Friends for a long time, but I find that it is so unrealistic that I can't enjoy it that much anymore. Scrubs however is quite real, well as real as a show can be, and it also stars Zach Braff. There is drama, humor, a multi-ethnic cast, needles, and crazy Janitors. In general its a great show, and since I sometimes need to fill my cravings for drama, I watch the show and enjoy the drama. Other then that I have been viewing a show airing on the Discovery Channel called Myth Busters. They take myths from every day and either prove or disprove the myth. It is a great show for a few reasons. The guys are whitty, and fun to watch, they are great at building things, and they make the show interesting by finding myths to bust that are great and interesting for all who watch. I realize that this is turning into some sort of promotional spot for two great shows, but I feel as though it is nessary to share what I have been watching and enjoying on my days off. It seems as though I have lots of days off, this is due to the fact that I am part of a union that is on strike, and so I have been picking up shifts at my other job, which pays way less, but is a good place to work and enjoy being working and making cash'o'la. I am looking at a giant picture of C.S.Lewis that is on my wall, speaking of CS I have been reading the Chronicles of Narnia before bed lately, and its been great. I think that its great for dreaming since I have also been dreaming lately. I havent been remembering what I dream, but the fact that I am having dreams says that I am either de-stressing from the school year, or I am getting enough sleep, or that my mind is running out of things to process at night so it spends some of it's down time enjoying itself and creating cool worlds within the walls of my skull. I just ran out of things to talk about so until next time, cheers. I really hate it when customers tell me "Cheers", I am not drinkin with you, nor am I a close friend from which "Cheers" would mean something, I am a cashier and you a customer. Peace.

Friday, August 05, 2005

Etiquette

Now I am not an expert on what is kosher and what is a blatent disregard for human dignity, but when there is an elevator stopping on your floor, it is natural to allow a period of time for the person on the elevator to get off before you get on. However, it seems as though there are many people in the fair city of Calgary who do not like to follow this simple piece of decent human behaviour. As a member of the thriving community of Calgary, I take the elevator almost every day, in fact I sometimes take many more times then once. I also take the C-Train, which is also prone to impatient Calgarians. Today I was reminded of how this behaviour greatly distresses me. As I exited the elevator this morning, on my way to Office Depot, I had to side step around those eager to get into the elevator. Not only did I have to side step around one of them, I had to step the other way in order to avoid the onslaught of more rushing humans. As I walked I remembered all the times that I have encountered such actions. Riding the C-Train is no easy task, especially during the hours of rush. I would be riding the train, and attempt to get off and those on the platform would push to get into the car thus making it difficult to get out the door and to my destination. At times I even had to push my way out, which is not too pleasent in any situation, but during the hours of rush there are cell phones, briefcases, tired businessmen, sweaty construction workers, and young children comming home from school. When we would go to chapel, during the semester, I remember our reminder to each other to have "C-Train Etiquette" and allow those on board to disembark and thus make room for us. Sometimes I wish that people would take some time and allow those inside to make room so that they could board without incident, and also that they would just relax and not worry that the elevator ride will be 5 seconds longer because they waited.

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Moonshine and Freeway Walking

Let me tell you a story that involves the last few days of my life. Usually my life is pretty dull and boring, but this past weekend it was quite the opposite. Saturday I found myself out of my apartment at 8:15am getting ready to to garage sailing for hidden treasures. I found a bunt pan, actually 2 of them, they were so cheap that I bought two, and then another pan of smaller porportions, and then a slide projector. All of the above glorious finds were under 12.50 altogether. Then as we were heading home we found a whole bunch of stuff on the front lawn of a house in the suburbs. We looks closely and it was all free. I got some music, some VCD's and a computer game. It was a glorious find since one of the CD's I had wanted for some time. After said garage sailing I went to a good bye shindig for a friend who is heading oversea's to teach for a few years. After this shindig I went to another shindig out in the country. This shindig was mainly about hanging around outside city limits and enjoying the fresh country air and the stars that come with being outside the city. I spent some time star gazing and saw the milky way for the first time since grade 12. It was such a great experience to be out of the city for at least a few hours. We then slept under the stars, and since I have yet to get a decent sleeping bag I was colder then 10 cold things. I awoke 1 hour after going to sleep, at 4am, and a friend was stoking the fire so we sat around the fire for a while until I was warm then I stoked the fire a bit more and went back to sleep for a few hours. Even though the night was cool, climate and generally, the morning was hot since the sun, which is generally hot, was beating down upon me. I awoke and enjoyed breakfast of eggs, bacon, bagel, coffee, hot chocolate, and fruit. After such a glorious feast we decided that a walk was in order. I was reluctent to head out into the heat since I was content to be sleeping or resting on the comfy couches. But I headed out with the gang and we crossed into a marsh like area. It was so nice out and it was a great walk. We were cutting new paths in the forrest and enjoying the glory of the outdoors. At one point we took our shoes off in order to ford a stream. This seemed annoying to me since my feet are wusses and I dislike walking on sharp rocks. But I forded the stream and put my shoes back on, then we proceeded to approach another stream that needed to be forded. I thought that I could make it by jumping from stone to stone, and I made it almost all the way, then I missed one rock and soaked a shoe, which naturally leads to throwing inhabitions to the wind and simply walking in the water with the shoes on my feet. It felt quite nice to walk in the cool and refreshing water. We then walked all around the area fording streams when nessesary and climbing hills and looking at fossils. It was a great hike through the forrest. I enjoyed myself throughly and am quite glad that I decided to join the adventure. After such a hike I was naturally quite dirty, but it was a good dirty since I had just excerted so much energy and seen some great natural habitat. We then took refuge in the basement and viewed a film, which I took a nap during to regain my strength. That eve I watched a soccer game between some friends and a rival team, then Cam Atiken and I went to visit some friends from Chintz and Company. We walked for a good hour in the wrong direction to get to their house, and then in the end enjoyed some quality time with our friends. We were heading to the train station, at Dalhousie for those familiar with Calgary. We thought we were going to on time for the last train and we arrived 10 minutes before the last train was supposed to leave. We bought our tickets and headed to the platform. We were greated by the train and attempted to get on, we were then greeted by the conductor of the train who told us that we missed the last train by 8 minutes, and due to construction downtown the trains were done for the evening. We were devestated since its a long way from the the NW to downtown and home. We called some dudes we knew and they did not pick up their phones, on a side note we found out later that had we called again they would have come and picked us up. Anyways so we were left with a few options, hitch-hike home or walk. We attempted to do both, only the walkind worked. Who would want to pick up two guys at 1:00am in the morning. So basically Cam and I walked all the way from Dalhousie to our homes in Downtown. It was a mammoth trek taking about 2.5 hours and between 8-10 km. We walked down the Crowchild to Kensington drive and then over the tenth street bridge to our home of downtown. No one picked us up, but Cam bought a Shawarma at 3:30 in the morning, which tasted and smelled so good. I was so tired when I got home, and my legs were hurting (hurting = almost unable to walk), and I had a massive blister since I was wearing my Birks and they got wet (Wet Birkenstocks = Blister). My knees hurt, my back hurt, my ego was stoked, and my feet were muddy. I put some deep cold on my legs and took some ibeuprofen, and then I went to bed where I was asleep in, I kid you not, 5 seconds. And thus ends my glorious weekend of walking and walking and walking. Anyhow I now need to go shopping with the glorious Mike Schalin, who conincidentally is also my roommate.