See which Greek Goddess you are.

That was NOT the same picture that was on the website. I dunno what goddess that is, but that is not Athena. Athena had a helmet and, you know, looks kind of war-like. Anyway, on with the log.

I had a wonderful time in Guelph visiting with Tracy. The drive out was horrible what with rush hour traffic and an accident, too. It turned a drive that I can easily do in under an hour and fifteen minutes into closer to two hours. Crappy. On a positive note, the weather held off until I arrived at her place. A wicked storm blew up, soaking her bed (before it occured to us to close her bedroom window), but we were safe and sound enjoying Trey Parker's movie, Orgazmo, which I'd never seen. Man, was it crazy ! Think of it: good Mormon boy of the latter-day saints doing his mission work in LA and getting drafted into a porn flick. Don't worry, he has a stunt cock stand in for the penetration scenes. It was crude, but also very clever and totally satisfying, which has nothing to do with the porn. Really. ;)

I played with Tracy's parrot, Coral (who bit me today and drew blood, the nasty fellow), quite a bit, as well as her cat, Deedlit (spelling, anyone?). Deedlit's a bit silly, but quite forgiving because she's so darn cute, sort of like Willi. I was less impressed with her when she stepped on my face at seven in the morning, and when she and the other cat, Jasper, were wrestling in the room at various times of the night. Good wrestling, not fighting. One thing that was super neat and not something you see every day, was Tracy and Mel (her housemate) vaccinating Jasper. The cat refuses to let a vet touch him, even on a house call, so Mel was given the syringes already filled with the vaccines and was left to do it herself. She's only a second year student, though, and less comfortable with needles than Tracy, so after three missed attempts, they wrapped Jasper in a towel, Mel held him down, and Tracy gave the injection. A day in the life of a vet student? Today we also took Deedlit outside on her leash and harness. Nifty.

We went to a farmers' market this morning and bought good food, some of which I brought back for my dinner. To digress somewhat, I enjoyed two small emu-meat pies and some late corn on the cob for dinner tonight. I have wax beans for tomorrow. Hurray ! The apple seller was out of spartans, but I picked up some lovely empires for a nice low price and they are delicious. Tracy also brought me along for a tour of the vet college. She is a tour guide and I was more than happy to accompany as it allows me to live somewhat viccariously through her own experiences at the school. I enjoyed the tour very much. I got to see specimens in jars of icky siamese twin pigs and such. Pretty gross stuff. The tour was fun and the college has such a lovely atmosphere, even if parts of it smell rather a bit like preserved cadavers. When the tour was over, Tracy took me into the restricted areas to meet her sheep. She works with a lab sheep. We also walked past the equine isolation stalls and there was one horse passed out in the stall on an IV, which was pretty interesting to see. There was a gorgeous show horse in one stall and he was all excited to see people looking in the observation window and he looked very good. We couldn't figure out why he was in isolation. Then we saw the bloody mucus he left on the plexiglass. Ew. Not a good sign.

Anyway, now I'm back at home, procrastinating before A) putting the edited text into the web page and, B) looking for my long lost character sheet. If I can't find it, I doubt I'll go to D&D tomorrow. I have a lot of stuff I need to be doing, anyway. We'll see.

In case you've sent me email in the last five days and I haven't answered, this would be because Hotmail is meddling with its servers again, or something. Anyway, I know for a fact that at least two messages never came and one was delayed by three days. I also have no idea if the emails I'm sending are going out, though it does appear that for the most part they are. Back to work I go.

Heading to Guelph tonight ! Hurray ! I'm going to visit with Tracy. Initially it was to be for the whole weekend, but her father's birthday is tomorrow night and I have more work to be doing so we're driving back together in the afternoon on Saturday. Willi should be suitably upset by my absense. Little does she know that I'll be gone for most of a week over Thanksgiving. Poor girl. I'll miss her, but on the other hand, I'll enjoy getting a full night's sleep several nights in a row.

Speaking of work, which I really wasn't speaking of, I'm quite pleased. I've been working on the ICC site and had to play within the bounds of the current website template. It's a very boring template, but it's teaching me many things. I used CSS for the first time (cascading style sheets) ever. I used a tutorial first, and then recreated the ones I used in the original site. I was surprised at how easy they are to use, which, I suppose, is the point. Julian's had a look at the page and aside from a couple of typos that will be fixed tomorrow night, he thinks it looks good. Also, he's ammenable to the use of images. So, I'm going to try to get a hold of some on Monday. I was thinking of creating a sort of photo montage that can be a transparent image underneath the text. A good idea, I think, and quite tasteful.

If all goes well, I might actually be able to play D&D on Sunday, but I'm not sure. I'd like to, but first I'd like to find my character sheet. Arg ! Why is it that the important things are the first to disappear? *wink*

At half past four yesterday afternoon, I received the revised Call for Submissions. Finally. I didn't do anything with it last night since Rick was coming over so tonight's the big night. Tonight I get busy !

We watched West Wing last night, and, as usual, it was good. We watched part of that horrible Amazing Race show, and as they introduced the people, I knew I didn't care. Though, I kind of hope the strict Baptist and his gay son win. We flipped to that 50 Years of the CBC thing hosted by Rick Mercer. It was kind of funny. Last night was CBC television during the 70s. Tonight it will be the 80s. If I watch anything, though, it will likely be the CSI show. Going back to Rick Mercer for a moment, I have to wonder, why is he the CBC's golden boy lately? Yes, his Talking to Americans was funny, but I'm not sure I understand the love affair. Oh well.

Willi broke my spider plant. Again. It seems her widening hips make it hard for her to judge where to land and how to turn about on the window sill. Looks like I'll have to bite the bullet and go buy some potting soil and a new pot on Sunday. It's a good thing spider plants are nearly impossible to kill. It just goes right on sprouting babies and flowers. Rick was a good guy and cleaned up the mess that Willi had made. I couldn't deal with it this morning, not if I wanted to be on time, anyway. Big smoochy thanks to Rick for taking care of the plant.

What does one do with an incredibly irritating, adorable cat? She drives me so insane at night that I dream of declawing her. I absolutely hate declawing cats, because it mutilates their paws. I do understand that there is a new way to do it that leaves the joints intact, and I might even consider it because she can get agressive, be horribly destructive, and drives me out of my mind when she picks the bottom of my door to wake me up at night. I don't know. I love her to pieces, but she really is a pain in the ass. Oh well, who needs to sleep anyway, right?

I think I'm going insane. I keep hearing things that aren't there. I could have sworn I heard a subway door chime, but since I work on the fourth floor of the museum, it seems rather unlikely, even if the ROM is above a station. It's a creepy feeling this sensation of dwindling sanity. They say that if you think you're nuts, you probably aren't. I'm counting on that.

Last night, I went over to Megan's house. It's in a bit of turmoil since she and Chris broke up and he was finishing up moving his stuff, and her other roommate, Chantal, gave notice, too. Megan's looked better. She's put on weight and is even paler than she usually is, but it was great to see her. We've missed each other very much, neither making much effort to hold up the friendship as each of us fought our seperate private battles. We watched Buffy, which rocked, and then a new show called Haunted, which didn't entirely suck and we'll watch again, and topped it off with Angel. If I'm not working to deadline next Tuesday, we're going to do it again.

Speaking of deadlines, at least the Imaging Centre got back to me. I'll deal with that tomorrow. I've grabbed the ROM book, Worlds to Explore, which sort of takes the reader through a vague tour of the different galleries. I've already marked four images I wouldn't mind using. Of course, having the final copy to work with would be nice. I think it's time for a phone call. On top of that Dawn wants costume designs. I'm going to explode. Scream. Flail about madly. Something dramatic to appropriately show how pulled I feel. If I could just get that copy ! Gar ! *mildly freaking out*

In fairness, I shall endeavour to create a list of names that I like. This is not a list of potential baby names, I don't particularly dream of having babies, but I do have very strong preferences for certain names.

Adelaide, Stephen, David, Jude, Claire (hi mom !), Anne, Phalar, Thomas, Jack, Ben, Kieran, Megan (and with an H, but not spelled Meagan), Ian, Catherine, Emma, Aaron, Isaac, Ellen, Justin, Chavah, Olivia, Robert, Jeffrey (and with a G), Julie, Evan, Gregory, Nigel, Johanna, Nathaniel (Nathan), Jasmine, Laurel, Lucifer (shush, it means 'bringer of light'), Michael, Vivian (for either male or female),Claudia, Uriel, and Eshe.

I can hear the membership peeps discussing future 'incentives' to draw in more members and ensure that members renew. It's sort of interesting how they discuss it. It's very consumer-driven and quite mercantile. We the public don't often think about how much planning goes into the annoying direct mailings that come, or even the scripts that are used, and the trouble-shooting and scenarios that must be considered. They're also discussing hospital visits and injuries, but I guess it can't be all work, all the time, eh?

I took a walk at lunch today; headed over to the Manulife Centre to buy some stuff at the Pharma Plus there. I couldn't help but marvel at today. The previous warm weather record was set in 1988 at 27C, but today it hit 28C (go, Toronto?!) and did actually make 34C with the humidex, but because there's a gentle breeze, and the sun's not so high in the sky, it doesn't feel as bad as it could. I had a very nice walk in the sun, and for now, I've decided that I will enjoy this strange Indian Summer. The long-range prediction, as bespoken by the Weather Network, will remain a bit warm, but cooling right down next week. I wonder if they will be right.

Today is a lovely day. For July. Of course, this is the last day in September, so mind if I ask, "What the hell is wrong with the weather this year?" They're calling for 34C with humidity tomorrow. Great. Please note: sarcasm. The leaves should be a third in colour by now, but instead, I've seen two trees turning. In total. And they were in Peterborough. What gives?

Don't give me that El Nino crap, either. I studied climate in university and I know all about El Nino. Ya, it is cyclical, and they're calling for this to be an El Nino winter, and yes, it peaks every five to seven years, and it is balanced by La Nina, the cold current to El Nino's warm. Some might recall that last year we had a warm winter. Ridiculously warm across most of Canada (and the US). The winter previous, was cold. Some might also recall that last year, they mentioned El Nino in discussing the drought and warm winter, too. Okay, but that wasn't really El Nino, right? What? Is anyone else confused?

So, I went to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's climate prediction website and found a chronological listing of the warm and cold cycles since 1950. Okay, so considering there is a lag time of about two to three months before we start really feeling the effects, what the hell was wrong with last year? They're calling it neutral (normal) but hey? So how is it that last summer was wickedly hot and dry and the winter was warm? And then the spring was cold? And then this summer, even given a two month lag time, was well over the 'slightly warm' caused by El Nino? Was there something about fires in Austrailia? And smog from China? I don't remember.

I'm not answering any questions here at all, and I'm only serving to confuse myself. I'm going to end this befuddled rant with, "What the hell is up with the weather?" and pretend I've never heard of this El Nino business.

In other news: On Saturday, Carrie and I went to visit Sandra for a discussion of bridesmaid dresses. She showed us some swatches and mostly we just hung out. She also fed us (because we're special) some of her fantastic pear crumble. MmmMmmmmm. Following that, we picked up Rick (a bit late, no surprise there) and headed up to Al & Carrie's where we found Al. We all headed to St. Hubert's for a most delicious chicken dinner and then over to Yorkdale to watch The Tuxedo, starring Jackie Chan. It was so funny. I nearly peed at one point, but happily managed to contain myself.

Sunday, Rick and I headed down to Queen St W where we could enjoy the sights and sounds of Word on the Street. It was fun. We visited Evelyn and Leila who were promoting Leila's lovely children's book, Patches Finds a Friend. They were pleased that we came out. We also visited John who was doing children's entertainment (and he was rocking it, even through the kids were at the need-a-nap point in the day). He, too, was pleased to see us. I talked to Andy Barry from Metro Morning on the CBC and he was about as tall as he sounds. *laugh* One little girl was very cute about having heard him come out of her radio in the mornings. I bought a book and picked up some magazines that were virtually free, Rick bought me some argyle socks (hurray), and then we went to Sushi Time and ate. I couldn't finish mine.

Today is crawling by, and now I'm waiting, not to go home, but to go to a union meeting I only found out about earlier in the day. I'm also still waiting to hear back from the ROM Imaging centre about the use of images from the ROM files. Why am I the only one on the ball? Geesh.

Also, I'd like to add some names to that list of mine. Gladys, Jocelyn, Randy, Orville, Garth, and Eileen (except when concerning that Dexy's Midnight Runners song). Don't you feel edified, now.