fierce invalids home from hot climates

by tom robbins

so i finally finished the book. it took me a while.

after gettin over the rather show-offy nature of the prose (which apparently was infectious), i rather did enjoy the book. some of the situations were just bizarre. i rather like bizarre situations. the absurd. situations and events that you can just take a step back and look at and smile. b/c, you've gotta be able to smile at life.

and i guess that was the point of the book - you can't take life too seriously. one of the things that separate humans from the other mammals... that along with curiosity and sexuality and some other stuff.

the book was a rather amusing combination of crazy highjinx (is that redundant? is there any highjinx but the crazy kind? and while we're on the subject - can you have just one highjink? or one shenanigan, for that matter?) and a lot of talk about religion and the relationship with life beyond what we currently know.

so ... if you aren't easily offended - i say read it. it provides some ideas that are a little different than your usual ones (i might provide some quotes tomorrow .. if i get around to it). but in the end, i still think robbins is a show-off who uses his writing as a type of ... type-writer masturbation - rather narcissistic. but i guess, if i were him, i'd do the same. he can be quite clever.

ring ring

oh cell phones ... it took me quite some time to enter into the world of mobile telephone communications. and i must say it has been handy at times. (although, at other times ... it just re-emphasizes the fact that i rarely receive any phone calls .. which is ok, b/c my preferred method of communication isn't via the telephone and as such my phone time is generally limited to giving and receiving logistical details regarding a specific activity.) when i finally did make the plunge, i got a cute little phone. it's shiny, it's silver, it flips and has a colour screen (a far cry from the zack morris phone of yore). all was well and good. or so i thought. unfortunately, i've had a few problems with my phone and have been having some difficulty in resolving them.

the biggest problem is my phone's decision to randomly not ring when ppl call me. so i took the phone back to the store. first, the store helper person called my phone and it rang. they said, it seems to be working fine now. i had to once again explain how this was a RANDOM problem. next, i was given the wonderful explanation that the ringer wasn't on - i.e. this problem was caused by my own idiocy. (this just angered me a bit seeing as i had already told them the story that i was holding my phone in my hand, with the ringer on and the phone gave a little beep and i looked and i had missed a call ... i was holding my phone in my hand at the time b/c i knew it had a
tendency to not ring when i was supposed to be meeting someone somewhere, which was the case at the time) ... so i repeated the story of the phone beeping in my hand. i also added that my phone would either be on vibrate or ring+vibrate ... and i often missed calls when the phone was in my purse, under my arm. the vibration provided by the phone is not something that one easily misses. (my purse isn't so large that the phone gets swallowed into a sea of old cosmetics, wet naps and fuzzy mints).

this was not the only problem with my phone. the other two are more amusing than annoying though (like the above). first... sometimes names in my address book would get combined. for example, say i had jane smitherson and mary browning in my address book. sometimes, when jane would call, in my call history her name would come up as jane smithersoning. it was quite strange. the other problem was again with my call history. i've had called come up in my call history as: 4Ú$ |~|~|~| (note, the tildes came up more as just little speckles than actual tildes ... but i think they work well for the example). i found this display rather strange - so i turned off my phone and turned it back on again. this erased ALL my call history. (the strange
display occurred again and all my call history disappeared ... although ... i must say that i did lose my phone for a short period of time and when i retrieved it, all the call history was gone. but that's a story for another time).

so, after numerous failed attempts to return my phone (they had to send it back to the manufacturer ... so they said they would provide me with a loner phone for a month or two until i got my real phone back ... the first few times i went though, they had no loner phones available) .. i finally succeeded last night. it will take 4 - 6 weeks. in the mean time, i get the loner phone.

the loner phone is the most ghetto phone i've ever seen. maybe aside from the old motorola my parents had back in the late nineties, which was probably 1 step up from the zack morris phone - the loner phone might be 2 steps up from the zack morris phone. it's big, bulky and blue (in a bad way - seeing as i usually do like blue). i'm embarassed to use it!

so just a note to those ppl who read this and have occasion to call my cell phone - if you call my cell phone and i'm not in the privacy of my own home (the privacy where i feel comfortable enough to wear yoga pants and knee high shiny red socks) - i might not answer. and to think that i'm stuck with this monstrosity for a month!

*sigh*

alas, what is a lass to do?

one more time?

so, it's that magic time of year. what time is that? the time where all the cute bunnies and fuzzy chicks appear in the stores? (along with all that scrumptious chocolate and most importantly the cadbury creme eggs). well, no ... that's not the time. it's the time when we canadians get to rrrrroll up the rrrim to win!

i think this is my luckiest year ever! so far i've played twice, and i've won twice!
sure, it was just a coffee and a doughnut, but still ... i won! (and i had my first doughnut in forever ... i generally don't like doughnuts, but i figured it was free - so i should seize the opportunity!)

so now i'm trying to decide if i should quit while i'm ahead. right now my winning percentage is 100%! i don't want to mar my perfect record. but then ... what if luck is with me? maybe i'm destined to keep winning - or to win a third time at least (seeing as these things usually come in threes). should i deny myself that chance just to ensure my record remains perfect?

however ... i do still have my free coffee to get. so i guess i'll have to tempt fate once more. wish me luck!

pants

i really think that the british are on to something ... calling underwear pants and pants trousers.

unfortunately, here in north america we have really just the two choices: underwear or panties.

while i can handle the term underwear .. it just seems so ... unappealing ... it's like long underwear, overly practical ... i can't handle panties ... it gives me that squicky feeling - it's rather perverted, pedophilic *shudders*

pants is good though. it's straightforward, simple, no nonsense.

i say we revolt! ppl of toronto, let's call underwear pants! we'll turn this city on its head!

ah, mini travels

so i ordered an ipod mini last week (apparently, when i'm home sick from work and have nothing better to do, i go online shopping).

i decided to track where my little mini has been so far. i think the thing is more well-travelled than me!

it started in china and then ...

- anchorage, alaska
- back to china
- back to anchorage
- to japan
- to indiana
- to new york
- to tennesse
- and now it's in mississauga and released for delivery! YAY!

it should be in toronto by wednesday morning! hooray!

* note: this has been updated to reflect the journey.