How I Met Homer and Bart Simpson in Real Life

For my thirteenth birthday, I went on a cruise with one of my childhood friends and her mother. One morning as we were heading to the elevator, I witnessed an exchange between an overweight, balding man in jeans and a white t-shirt and his blond son wearing a t-shirt and shorts. They might have been blue and orange, but I guess I can forgive a ten-year-old boy for not wanting to wear the same outfit every day, especially on vacation, in case I do not remember correctly.

Anyway, they were having a conversation about how the son knew where all of the "old people" were staying. The dad asked him, "How do you know?"

He answered, "I knocked."

I was expecting the dad to teach him a lesson in manners, but instead, he replied, "Let me try!" and proceeded to knock on a complete stranger's door just to see if the occupants were old. That's where the story ends. I never saw Homer and Bart again. Not in real life, anyway.

Now for the updates, since it has been a while.

I am scheduled to have my overgrown adenoids removed in the middle of December (finally). I cannot wait. The thought of breathing and sleeping better is simply amazing. I don't even care that I will be sore on Christmas, I just want them out.

I ordered one of Modcloth's Stylish Surprises. I have been meaning to try it out for a while, but I keep missing it every time. Not this time! I am excited to see what I get. I paid $15 for either a skirt, top, dress or jacket in my size that will be worth $30-300. Based on some blog posts and Facebook posts I have read, it is usually worth it, although some people get something totally horrible like this snake dress. I may or may not post a picture of what I get when it comes.

And now to plow through the rest - still no job, coloured my hair brown and got a new hair cut, harvested some dwarf sunflower seeds yesterday to plant later, tea seeds rotted again and are being eaten by worms but I will try again indoors when the bugs are away for the winter, successfully grew ghost chilies in Canada on the first try, started knitting curtains for my window but one of the needles went missing and hasn't resurfaced so I can't finish it yet, had the best grapes of my life today, can't fall asleep before 3:00 anymore.

That's it for tonight. I leave you with this awesome article about welfare.

The text in the second/broken image meme reads, "Oh, you spent your welfare check on the new iPhone and now you're broke? Better ask Siri where you can get a job like the rest of us!"

Impotent Impotables

I awoke this morning to a weird smell in the house. It was very different from anything I have ever smelled. Nobody could figure out what it was. It was obviously not gas, definitely not food, and resembled burning and chemicals. It spread rapidly throughout the house. We wanted to make sure the house wasn't going to catch fire, so we called the fire department. It took them a few minutes, but eventually they figured it out and they pronounced our fridge dead. Thankfully, we have a spare fridge in the garage and my mom was able to bring her mini fridge back from her office, but it's nowhere near enough room for all of our crap. It was a good excuse to get rid of our rotten stuff, at least, but now we need a new fridge.

My Doberman puppy swallowed a cooked chicken bone whole yesterday. He's made it a day and a half without any problems, so chances are he will be okay. It's just a matter of waiting until he passes the bone.

Two of the sunflower seeds have sprouted, the radishes are sprouting like crazy, the green onions are just sprouting and the spinach seeds have been planted. We also got a cucumber plant, which will go in a pot tomorrow, and some peas because the Doberman ate my pack of pea seeds.

Purity balls are the creepiest thing I have ever come across. Young girls wearing the same white dress dance around a cross and pledge TO THEIR FATHERS to stay "pure" until marriage. That is just wrong and gross and barfy. If this practice isn't abolished in my lifetime, I will at least suggest changing the definition of "purity balls" to a clean-shaven, shiny, smooth, perfectly sculpted ball sack. That way, these creepy dads will have to face their gay sides for a split second and be too uncomfortable to think about purity balls because they threaten their precious masculinity. Maybe it will make them finally want to take the truck nuts off of their pickup trucks.

In the mean time, I will invent truck ovaries.

So, what does any of this have to do with the title of this post? Well, most of it has nothing to do with it. As a result of downsizing the fridge, I had to throw out what was left of my cappuccino martini and a third of a bottle of Gewürztraminer. The latter is my favourite wine, so I had a final glass of it and helped finish off a bottle of St-Remy a la creme. It is a sad day for us lushes.

Spewing out my thoughts before bed

The garden is planted again with the exception of some spinach seeds, but I'll see to that tomorrow. My mom and I are growing peas, yellow beans, Swiss chard, lettuce, red and yellow tomatoes, strawberries, some flowers, some spices, bell peppers, carrots, green onions, radishes, naga morich peppers, and bhut jolokia peppers. We're mostly growing the last two as a joke, but we might make an intense hot sauce. I'm growing dwarf sunflowers again and making another attempt at growing tea. I soaked the seeds longer and weighed them down so that they'd stay submerged and cracked the seed coats this time, so hopefully they won't rot before they germinate.

I am ever so delighted at the way Jon Stewart blasted Rob Ford tonight. What a useless mayor he has been! I'm not going to miss him when this is all over.

News article for those out of the loop: http://read.thestar.com/#!/article/5195ab2e7b1eac38c806a9de-rob-ford-in-crack-cocaine-video-scandal

There's a lesson to be learned from all of this: if the fourth-largest city in North America is stupid enough to elect you as their mayor, don't get caught on video smoking crack and don't get photographed with a drug dealer who will be murdered some time after the picture is taken.

When Psy performed at the finale of American Idol, my mom and I couldn't tell if what he was signing sounded like diarrhea, gonorrhea or pyorrhea, so I renamed the song Psyorrhea. I don't care to remember what the song was actually called. That basically sums up my opinion of Top 40.

Call me old-fashioned, but I must say I really don't understand this fashion trend where women buzz a patch out of the sides of their heads. It just looks so ugly. I understand it for people who have had brain surgery, but if I ever had brain surgery, I would feel compelled to shave my whole head to make it even because the patch would bother me so much. Maybe it's the greatest thing ever and my disdain for it can only be attributed to my irrational need for symmetry. Either you have that or you don't.

Bach did. Handel didn't.

I'm no Star Trek fan, but I have a hilarious idea for a parody of the last two movies where William Shatner plays Captain Kirk's future self warning everyone that they're in grave danger and nobody believes he's Captain Kirk from the future.

Those are my thoughts for the night. I'm sure I'll have plenty more to keep me from sleeping until ass o'clock.

What's going on now?

Since I last posted, I've started classes, I'm playing in wind ensemble, I've perfected the recipe for non-instant oatmeal, two of my tea seeds rotted and I figured out how to crochet a multitude of things as well as knit hats and socks. My next knitting project will be an ugly Christmas sweater.

I'm taking two musicology courses and I am not particularly thrilled with the subject. I like subjects where I am either right or wrong and can draw upon factual knowledge to prove I am right, not where I have to pull an answer out of my ass and draw upon something that came out of someone else's ass to prove that I might possibly be right but it's a bit of a grey area. It's very much philosophy-based, and while I can respect anyone who studies philosophy, I find it becomes less profound as the subject progresses because the publish-or-perish mindset that plagues the scholarly world has resulted in a lot of (at least seemingly) pointless hair-splitting. I can understand these ideas, even if it means taking a brief look at the Simple English version of the Wikipedia page, but why exactly do the most minute details of human experience have to have all these fancy Greek and Latin terms attached to them? Why do these negligible aspects of our lives have to be defined at all? If you're a philosopher, you might already know that I'm ranting about phenomenology. If you're not a philosopher, I dare you to look it up. It's difficult to understand the different aspects of it, but once you can put it in terms you understand, it seems so basic.

Before I forget again, I forgot to mention last time that I packed up my balcony garden and brought it home. It's probably withering away because of the temperature/my parents and brothers don't water it, but when I was home at the end of August, the plants were doing better because they get better sunlight in my south-facing backyard than my east-facing balcony. I still have the peppermint and the remaining tea plants under a fluorescent light behind my laptop. I might end up ordering new seeds and starting over, but this time I'll scarify them before they've been planted for three months.

And that's my life right now. Tomorrow I have classes all day and on Wednesday I'm going to look through the discontinued yarn at the craft store for yarns that I can incorporate into my ugly sweater.

Back again!

I'll start this time with a bit of humour. I am totally serious when I say I will disown anyone gullible enough to buy this product:

http://www.amazon.com/review/RTADRUSXBGGWU/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt#RTADRUSXBGGWU

This is the better of its two reviews. The other is just as sarcastic (I hope) but this says it all. I get it, it isn't easy to find 18 pounds of obsidian that you can craft into a perfect, nicely polished sphere, but after an unsurprisingly brief search on eBay I was able to find decorative obsidian for much cheaper. Here's the thing, though - this is not sold as a decoration. The seller claims this ball of dried-up volcano jizz is supposed to protect you from harm just by sitting there - after all, 18 pounds is too heavy for a lot of people to throw at their enemies effectively.

Oh, no! I should stay away from these guys - the have the Obsidian Ball 04 Rainbow Crystal Black Volcanic Glass Protection Stone Healing Therapy Super Deluxe 18 Lbs. Spiritual Orb 8"! I'll spontaneously combust if I get too close!

I'm not the first to say that crystal healing is a load of crap. Scientific organizations have humoured practitioners with studies that have only ever concluded that it does nothing. Hell, even the Catholic church, which has built up a reputation over the last 2000-odd years for not making sense at the best of times, says not to partake in it because crystals have no intrinsic power.

Hint: They are correct about that.

While crystals do produce an electrical current when compressed, the few practical uses for that effect include record player needles and devices that measure pressure, force and acceleration - buying an expensive crystal, bathing it, leaving it out in the sun, sleeping with it, feeding it, talking to it and blowing your nose on it will only reassure you that you are fucking insane. It will not make all of your problems disappear, unless, of course, your only problems are that you have too much money and too much time on your hands.

TL;DR: Crystal healing is the Pet Rock of alternative medicine.

Back to earth...

By the way, I forgave the Catholic church for most of their infractions when I found out that a Catholic priest originally came up with the Big Bang. It's true. Look it up if you don't believe me. Step two: gay marriage.

It's looking like I'll have a second job on Saturdays busing tables at the gay bar. The shifts end later than at Williams, but knowing that it will only be on Saturday and not two random days of the week will help me prepare for it, I'll never have to work late on a weekday during the school year and since my roommate works there and has a car, she can drive me home. Besides that, the gay bar is a good time. There are few other places where you can have the valuable experience of hearing a DJ say, "First person to show me a Prince Albert wins a prize!"

For those of you who have to look up what a Prince Albert is, don't go right to Google Images if you're squeamish.

As for the garden, it's been quite underwhelming lately. The marigold seedlings I had all died, the lettuce bolted and I cut back the stalk and it's already starting to regrow, the strawberries are still producing, the tomato plant has past its peak, the carrots are stunted but they taste fine, the sunflowers have buds on them, the herbs are doing fine, I have a fair amount of dried chamomile saved up (and lots of seeds), and the tea is taking its time to germinate as expected.

And that's it. Time for bed.

Maybe I should post more frequently or something.

Between the last time I posted and now, my marigold seeds started sprouting. The tea seeds are taking their time and the lettuce is now at a point that I can eat it. I take off a leaf every day for sandwiches. I've eaten quite a few of the strawberries and many more of the cherry tomatoes, and dried a fair amount of chamomile flowers. I'm already thinking about what I want to plant next year. I may not know where I exactly I'll be living, but it will have some outdoor space to plant some food and it will not be a basement.

I checked out my audience statistics a while ago and I've had three pageviews from Russia. Who are these Russians/this Russian who has viewed my page three times?

Just checked again and found one from Germany and one from Argentina.

It's certainly not a bad thing, just unexpected. I think I'll leave it alone for a while and see what happens. Or maybe I won't leave it alone for a while, since I don't anticipate becoming less curious any time soon and I'll still be able to see what happens if I don't leave it alone.

I'm in the midst of knitting a scarf. It's the second thing I've ever knitted and it's looking awesome. The first thing was a coaster that gets narrower towards the top because I was actually knitting it tightly enough for the last 9/17 of it.

This does mean that I counted the rows and reduced the fraction.

The ends are going to be a checkered stockinette pattern and the middle is whatever stockinette-based pattern I feel like. It's looking awesome so far - knitting is very mechanical in nature and I just so happen to be mechanically oriented. One of these days I'm going to get some different kinds of needles and learn how to knit things that are not scarves or made with just knit and purl stitches. I figure if I'm going to have a hobby, why not have one that results in a cheap article of clothing?

I'm probably using the wrong-sized needles. I bought them from a store that was closing down and the biggest ones I could find as a pair were 4.5mm.

I suppose I'll end it there. I'll have more to say at a better time of day. Goodnight, world.

No Marigolds, Gromit!

Yes, the title means the marigolds still haven't germinated. I'd like them to bloom before the summer is over... Everything else is flourishing, though, and I've started drying the chamomile in a pasta strainer.

I'd be at work right now if I felt any better. I'm not quite sure what happened myself because I felt fine until the first hour at work. I started to feel weak and thought it was just because I was hungry, but when I went for my break, my stomach hurt and I couldn't keep my dinner down. I do feel a bit better now - not 100%, but since I prepare meals at work it's probably for the best that I went home in case it is contagious.

I'm starting to use Opera (the browser) and I think I'll keep it. It runs pretty fast compared to the other ones I've used, which would include MSIE, Firefox, Chrome and Netscape.

Wow, when did I last use Netscape? Almost a decade ago, if not a bit more than that. Do people still use Netscape? Wikipedia says it was discontinued in 2008. I wonder if the latest version still plays the meteor animation while the page is loading.


I still find myself going to Firefox every so often, mainly because it is still technically my main browser and when other applications use the internet, they open Firefox. Not a huge deal. I still need it because a handful of sites don't work so well in Opera, but not enough to bother me. Not that anyone is really interested in which browser I use.

I went to check my referring sites on the Blogger dashboard just for shits. Turns out this blog made its way to Stumbleupon somehow. I signed up a few minutes ago to try to find it, but I couldn't. Weird.

Another thing I've started using is Wish. Basically, you make a wish list and earn rewards based on your activity. I've already been rewarded with this. The funny thing is even though I like it, I didn't really want it badly, I just wished for it as a favour to the person who added it. Out of the three people who wished for it, she was the only one who didn't get it, which I found weird because one of the ways in which you can get rewards is by having someone who follows you wish for something you added. Stupid Paypal wouldn't let me transfer the rebate to my bank account because it was too low, but I was able to put it towards one of my boyfriend's birthday presents.

I'm not saying what it is because I know he reads this and it will ruin the surprise.

I should probably be in bed, but I am so used to being up later than this that I wouldn't be able to sleep anyway. Hopefully I'll get enough OSAP this year that I'll be able to sort-of quit/only work a few 4-hour shifts when I'm needed and not until close. That would be great.

Over the last few days...

I've been meaning to post more. I've been going back and forth between Waterloo and Whitby over the last week and a bit and I just haven't got around to it. I will predictably start with the garden.

The tea plant came in the day after I made my last post. All five seeds are planted and hopefully they will all have germinated by September. Apparently, it takes at least a month and I have to keep them moist. Not having to pay for tea in three years will be amazing. Speaking of tea, I forgot to take some oolong from home before I left...

I now have more strawberry fruits, blossoms and buds than I care to count. I won't even bother counting the tomatoes. The chamomile is also blooming like crazy and I have enough fresh herbs to last a while. The sunflowers are getting big, but the marigolds don't seem to want to germinate - apparently, putting plastic wrap over the pot will prevent the soil from drying out too much as long as you remove it once they sprout. Perhaps I'll try that.

As for other things, take a guess as to what this is.

If you guessed a blueberry and cherry Kuchen, you're right! I made one last night. Here is a picture of it from farther away. It looks much more appealing from that distance.

I didn't get a picture of it before it ended up half-eaten because it looked and smelled so damn good. Tasted just as good, too. I got the recipe from this book here:

Isn't that cover ridiculous? Closeup on the photo of the authors:

Oh my. Now, this picture was taken from my camera phone, so it doesn't quite capture how ridiculous this is. But seriously, look at that hair! Look at that shirt! (Or pillowcase?) Look at those necklaces! I can't even identify the era this book was written by their clothes. I just can't bring myself to believe that was ever in style. I can imagine those ladies looking at it all these years later and saying, "What were we thinking?" Perhaps they still dress that way. That is scary to think about.

My curiosity got the better of me and I looked them up on Google images. They don't. Existential crisis averted.

Just before I left to go back to Waterloo, there was one small piece left. I had three pieces myself. I brought back with me my mom's like-new pastry cutter that she used just once when I was a baby (if I was even born then). The next thing I use it for will be buttermilk biscuits, which I will have with my breakfast over the next few days.

If you have not yet figured it out, I like baking and making fun of out-of-style outfits on cookbook covers. I'm pretty good at both.

And that's it for tonight. I am tired.

Took me long enough.

This time, I'm writing at a reasonable hour. I stay up late because my job keeps me up at night and I just can't rearrange my sleep schedule a few times a week. Hopefully the new Walmart going in down the street will give me a call so I can change that. I miss being able to wake up in the morning without feeling gross.

So, what's new...

Of course, my mind goes right to the balcony garden, but I can't help myself. I love it and I'll hate the winter even more this year.

The tea plant seeds have yet to arrive. They must be stuck in customs. Until they finally do, I'll keep checking every the mail box day. I want to plant them, dammit!

I thought I'd only be growing food, but on Thursday I caved and bought some flower seeds to bring in the bees. I planted dwarf varieties of marigolds and sunflowers. Today, three of the sunflowers poked their little heads out of the soil - so much for seven days to germinate! Sunflowers are my favourite flower and it will break my heart to have to thin them in a few weeks, but I suppose that's better than letting the roots get tangled.

The chamomile is starting to flower like crazy. I'm going to have so much tea by the time the summer is over. I'll have to buy a small window screen to dry the flowers on. Since I cut strawberry runner, the mother plant has blossomed like crazy, and even the baby has two buds of its own. I counted 24 strawberries - fruits, blossoms or buds - in total so far. I can't wait to eat them.

I had to thin the lettuce a week ago from three plants to two, so I put the whole plant I tore out on a sandwich. It will be a while before I can eat any more of it, but it was satisfying. I still have yet to figure out how to make a decent loaf of bread, but I'll get there. Eventually. The recipe I keep using and modifying calls for a tablespoon of yeast for one loaf, which I think is way too much. Once I figure it all out, I'm going to make a sourdough starter and start using that instead.

Aside from food and plants, I've been asked to substitute with the Cambridge Symphony Orchestra for their concert on Friday. It's opera excerpts and it just so happens to include one of my favourite scenes in all opera - the Te Deum from Tosca.

Cornell MacNeil (RIP) was the best Scarpia ever. You can't even look at him - that's how you know he did it right.

Seriously, I'm excited. This makes up for that horrible production of Tosca that I saw in Rome with my high school. Never again will I regret being sober at an opera quite so much as I did when it was finally over. They say that if a theatre is about to fail financially, putting on Tosca will save it - not that one. I went to look it up later only to find that it shut down and now houses one of those "Occupy" movements that seem to have gone out of style now.

How bad was it? Well, the singers were good, and the set was decently decorated, but even the condensed version of Tosca was too ambitious for this theatre, which was better suited to the more economical genre of opera seria (a type of Baroque opera that was popular when the theatre was built). By that, I mean the theatre was too small. The pit could not comfortably fit a full-sized orchestra inside it, so they just used a bunch of keyboards. Just imagine how hilarious a timpani roll sounds on a keyboard! It was enough to ruin it.

The moral of the story: when you go to see an opera, call the theatre before you buy the tickets to make sure they are using a real orchestra. Not that you should have to...

One of these days I'll get around to taking pictures of the balcony garden. In the mean time, have a wonderful day, everyone!

Here, have an introduction.

Today, I jumped on the blog bandwagon. I put no thought whatsoever into what the blog would be about, what it should be called or what I hope to achieve with it - for now, it's just a little plaything. It's kind of like that chemistry set you had as a kid - never mind the instructions, just mix things together and see what you get. You might get the cure for cancer and not realize it. You might get a highly potent fart bomb. Maybe you'll just make a bunch of pretty colours - after all, those sets are child proof.

So here's the inevitable "about me." I have played the flute for the last ten years and I like it enough that I'm going to make a career of it, so I'm about to enter my last year of university for music. As soon as I can afford to take the course, I'm going to start a flute repair business. I originally wanted to perform, but over the years I have come to realize that I tend to do well with mechanical stuff and there will always be more flute players breaking their expensive instruments than there will be opportunities to perform. That, and the expensive dental work that I've been putting off to get my degree would cause a miserable interruption to a performance career.

Enough of that boring crap. My life story can come later.

Lately, I've started to become interested in gardening, particularly when the end result is edible. I'm growing lettuce, carrots, strawberries, peppermint, chamomile, basil, Thai basil and rosemary on my balcony. Once I have a backyard of my own, I'll turn it into a self-sufficient, small-scale farm. I'll barely have a grocery bill - meat, milk and tropical fruit only. Suck on that, agribusiness.

As an amusing side note, I had a dream once that some scientist invented a pill that would make it so that mankind would never have to eat again. (Those "fruitarian" types who only eat what falls off the tree would be thrilled.) As soon as it came out on the market, food production was banned worldwide, but I grew an illegal vegetable garden anyway. I was approached by a government agent who was about to arrest me just before I woke up.

My most recent addition to the balcony garden has been the two strawberry plants. The great thing about that is I only bought one, but it had a well-established runner on it. Both are doing well. The harvest won't be any time soon because I'm trying to keep the runner attached for as long as possible, but it's worth it to have a second plant. I'm not stopping there, though - I ordered tea plant seeds online last night. I'm excited not to have to buy tea ever again... in two to three years. It will be interesting to see how it goes.

As for my boring rainy day today, I spent the entire day looking up free samples. I ordered a USB fan, laundry detergent, Breathe Right strips, acrylic paint, nail polish, shampoo and calcium supplements. I only paid $5 shipping for the USB fan. A few weeks ago I ordered a voucher for a free hair colour kit, a razor and some skin cream. So far, just the hair colour has come in, and I'll be heading out tomorrow to pick it up. I'm thinking blonde.

So that's it. More when I feel like it. Maybe never! Maybe tomorrow. But not today, that's certain.