Moving and Moral Matters Solved

This morning, I woke up at 8:30am. This is unusual, to say the least. It's possible that I might make this a regular occurrence, simply because I like having the house to myself. It's so quiet. I like it.

Two major happenings filled up my day (one more than the other):

1. The autumn Girl Guide cookies arrived. (not all of them, but 24 cases are residing in my dining room at present)

2. My dad moved.

Up until the actual act of moving, I was uber excited. I thought I liked moving. But I realized it's not moving that I like.

What I like about moving is the furniture arrangement and such. I love putting stuff away and hanging pictures on the wall and finding out where the couch fits best. I like rebuilding the desk and hooking up the computer.

Carrying boxes from one place to the other? Not so much.

It's not that I hate it. One good point is that I'm sure my muscles got a good workout from it, but it's not something I love.

I can't wait until everything is put away. That is what I truly love, seeing the transformation of empty house to livable home. Sounds a bit cliche, but's it's the truth.

On another note, literally, I was writing some Nerdfighter notes today. I'm going to be all sneaky and drop them off when I go to buy Paper Towns in paperback.

The decision about whether or not to buy Paper Towns has been a moral dilemma I have been debated over for the past week. Somehow, my mom's friend loaned/gave me a yellow Margo copy (not what I would have chosen) and I feel guilty buying a second when I have a perfectly functional book right on my shelf. As guilty as I feel, however, for the trees cut down and carbon emissions, I have convinced myself that it's in support of something important to me (i.e. John Green) and that the hardcover doesn't really fit on the shelf anyway (it doesn't match his other books).

I'll just make sure I lend it around to everyone I know so that I'm not the only person benefiting. Who wants to borrow it first?

Random Thoughts Tuesday

Courtesy of Crazy Brained Rena (Uttering Nonsense)

Ponder this...

- Why can't I buy unicorn pinatas in bulk? I would love to take one of them out on a bad day and beat the crap out of it. And then eat candy.

- Why can't I go into any Starbucks in the entire world, order an ice coffee and then leave, satisfied? This may never happen. However, I still hope.

- Who invented the lawn? Seriously, what is the point of having grass in front of your house? I'd rather everyone plant tomatoes and I HATE tomatoes. That says something.

- How come I can force myself to write lowercase a's like the keyboard writes them, but every time I go and type chai tea latte, it comes out with an extra r?

- Why do people drink beer? It's disgusting. Ew. *vomits*

- Come to think of it, why do people drink wine? It's gross, too. *triestothinkofalchohalthattastesgoodbutfails*

- Just want to say I don't support teen drinking. Bad. Very bad. And gross.

Random commentary...

- I love Indian food, but there's very fine line of spiciness that must be met. I don't want it to be flavourless, but I don't want to have to run around outside with my mouth open to try and calm the flames. Stop, drop and roll, my friends, simply does not work in these cases.

- All I want (well, one of the things I want) is for people to bring own their damn travel cups to Starbucks. I think Starbucks should have a week where anyone who brings their own re-usable cup gets their beverage free. 10 cents off is not enough.

- I want to watch Gilmore Girls.

- My battery is low. 20% remaining. Shucks.

- I'm liking the math right now. Spreadsheets are easy and Excel 2007 makes them super easy. It's like it does half the homework for me.

- TOMORROW IS MOVING DAY! HOORAY!!! EXCITEMENT! *jumpsupanddown*

- I'm hungry.

Human needs pull me away from my keyboard, but fear not, I will return. Someday.

Despair for the World

I'm going to talk about one of those incidents that makes me groan and fear for the future of our society whilst listening to A Very Potter Musical. It's things like AVPM that keep me from following Dobby's lead continuously banging my head against the wall. Thank you, Harry Potter, for making my life livable.

Let's just jump right in.

To get to my neighbour's house, you have to walk up a big staircase. It's kind of laborious and creepy because the stairs creak and you feel like you could come crashing through to the ground (and your death) at any step, but apart from thaaat the trek is just peachy.

It's not that I have a problem with stairs, though they are a bit irritating, the problem is that at the top of those stairs is the mailbox.

If it hadn't been for my extensive (*laughs*) work as a newspaper carrier, I might not care about this, but as it is I have a lot of compassion for those who trek through sun, rain and snow to fearlessly conquer evil barking dogs and finger eating mail slots just to deliver your mail to you. So I have a big problem with lazy-assed people who can't even walk down a flight of stairs to retrieve their own damn mail.

We've broached the subject with our closed-minded, selfish neighbours before. The mail carrier has also made a comment. Their flimsy argument is that they are worried that people may steal their mail if it is any farther away from the door. Now I know it's a bit pretentious, but has anyone ever seen those locking mail boxes in Home Depot and Canadian Tire? Yes, it's kind of conceited to assume your mail is important enough to be stolen, but there are options. You may need one of these if you're in the mafia, say, or maybe if you're an FBI agent, or just really paranoid, and maybe I'm just naive, but I don't think the average citizen needs to be so worried and mail theft.

Are people really that lazy and selfish that they can't grab their mail on the way to their door and save the mail carrier a tiresome journey? Seriously people, get over yourselves.

Now I'm going to go back to hitting my head against wall to the beat of AVPM.

Happy Dancing

I got a new layout, I got a new layout. It's very pretty. La di da.

Yesterday was pretty chill. Rachel, Caitlyn and I went out for coffee today. After some internal debate, I ordered a London Fog. Medium. Yeah, I'm that hard core. When the barrista handed over our drinks at the table, I took a sip, and, to my surprise, discovered that it wasn't a London Fog, but a large chai tea latte*. I suppose I was never meant to get that London Fog, and the chai tea latte was, indeed, delicious, but I still missed my Fog. Life is funny.

I've noticed I've been using Twitter a lot more frequently of late. I wonder why that is.

Now that I have this pretty, new (or pretty new) layout, I feel like I need to be providing some worthwhile content. Is anyone interested in the fact that the barrista screwed up my order? I don't think I'm even interested in it. So what to do. Well... LET's PLAY I SPY!

I Spy with my little eye, something that is tragically hip...

any guesses???.... no???

The Answer: Trying to write something meaningful in your blog so that you can live up to your lovely layout (Tragic because it's just plain pathetic, hip because new layouts always are).

I Spy with my little eye, someone who is sitting in her pajamas, blogging, and wants to eat breakfast...

guesses? c'mon, I made this one nice and easy for ya.

The Answer: Yours truly.

And so I take my leave of you. If you even made it this far. I will work on writing something more worthy of your interest. Did you like playing I Spy? I thought it was oodles of fun. Ta ta.

*Every time I try to type chai tea, i ALWAYS spell chair tea. It's this weird reflex. I wonder what a chair tea latte tastes like...

After typing that subject, I realized I don't really have a specific happy dance. When I'm excited about something I usually just jump up and down and twirl around. Hmm.... I'll have to think abotu that.

A List of Movies To Which I Am Quite Partial

Being such a excellent list-maker, I made this one the other day and thought I'd record it in electronic form. Each movie on this list is there for a different reason. Needless to say you should watch them all.

(in some particular order, but don't pay too much attention to it)

• You've Got Mail (1998) - You can really see the characters develop throughout the movie and it's so wonderfully intwined with Pride and Prejudice. *****
• Love Actually (2005) - Each story is touching and lovely in it's own way. British films are so realistic and wonderfully funny. *****
• The Breakfast Club (1985) - Startlingly honest and moving. ******
• Die Rote Zora (2008) - A great adventure story. Kind of like The Goonies with romance thrown in. [German] ****1/2
• Max Minsky und ich (2007) Realistically romantic and funny. [German] ****1/2
• Pride and Prejudice (2005) Spectactular cinematography mixed with excellent acting and a great story. ****1/2
• Mamma Mia (2008) - Hilarious and fun to sing along with. Plus an amazing acting ensemble and great setting. I need to go to Greece. ***1/2
• The Jane Austen Book Club (2007) I love Grigg. 'Nuff said. ***1/2
• Hot Fuzz (2007) Hahahahahahaha. "thegreatergood" ***1/2
• Finding Nemo (2003) **** I love this movie. One fish's journey to find everything that's important to him, and discovering so much more along the way. Inspiring.
• The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008) Edmund got so much hotter in the past year. ***1/2
• Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2 (2008) So many scrummy guys. Brian. Ian. Kostas. *sigh* ****
• Ratatouille (2007) Pixar is amazing.***1/2
• 27 Dresses (2008) James Marsden's smile can cure cancer. Seriously. I melt. ***1/2

I'm listening to AVPM right now!! This is so jokes.

Google Trumps All

Today it poured. To clarify it poured rain. So naturally, I went outside, in my bathing suit, and let the cold, wet drops fall on my bare skin. Needless to say, I didn't last very long outside before I ran to the bathroom for a hot shower, but it was a very enjoyable exercise, nonetheless.

It's the weird things I do that make me such a nerd. I like to dance in the rain. I like to skip down the side-walk. I like to wear mismatched socks.* I look to point out absurd things in life that no one else takes notice of.

My sister, Rachel, works close to the beach at a restaurant. The beach is downhill from my house, and it's a nice scooter ride down, but a laborious walk up. Thank you, Government, for public transit.

Sometimes Rachel gets a ride to work with my dad, and sometimes with my mom. Getting to the point, my parents each have their own way to drive from my house to the resturaunt. Maybe I'm reading too much into this but at the moment that I thought of this, I figured it was somewhat symbolic that they take different routes. Everyone thinks in different ways, so one person may think they know the fastest way to get somewhere while another person thinking the exact same thing could be going in a different direction.

I decided to ask Google Maps how it would get to the beach and discovered that the genius that is Google takes an entirely new route. More research: Googles route: 4 min., 2.0 km; Mom's route: 5min., 2.0 km; Dad's route: 5 min., 2.1 km.

It's possible that it's only interesting to me that my mother takes a more fuel efficient path to dropping my sister off at work than my father, but I hope this has taught us all one thing: Google knows best.

*HP Spoiler: As a memorial to Dobby, may he rest in peace.

An Open Letter to Russ Hiebert

(WARNING: Heavy sarcasm to follow)

I got your survey in the mail, Russ. I'm glad you're being so considerate of your constituents opinions and wishes. The way you phrase those questions so that we know your opinion and give inflictions so strong that you basically just guide our pens to the correct checkmark is very thoughtful. You must know how busy Canadians are these days, so it's a releive to have someone making decisions for us. This question is just one of many political gems you were kind enough to ask our opinions on:

Which statement reflects your view on the environment?

[] Our current efforts to preserve the environment are satisfactory, especially if doing more would result in job losses or higher prices.

[] We need to do more to preserve the environment even if it means job losses or higher prices.

I just love the way that you make it sound like environmentalists are lobbying for job losses, because there's no way for us to create more sustainable, environmentally friendly jobs. The very idea is ridiculous.

Before reading yours, I thought surveys were supposed to unbiasedly ask for the honest thoughts of a group of people without making revealing the thoughts of the survey writer. Now I know that a political survey is simply a device to make it look like the politician actually cares about what their constituents say. Thank you very much for clearing that up.

Most sincerely,

Alex