Goodbye Antec Aria, we hardly knew thee :(

Dear Antec Aria,

Although I was very happy that you came into my life back when I built you, I knew that it was too good to be true. You delighted me in your cute cube-ness, and your glaring, blue LEDs that lit up the night while I tried to sleep as I downloaded huge files; your highly convenient - in theory - but non-functional card reader was my largest pet peeve, among other things like becoming discontinued and "improved" upon as the new NSK1380 model without card reader, most likely due to it being non-functional to begin with.

Everyone marveled at your smallness. They oohed and ahhed you as I showed you to everyone who bothered to look, as I beamed proudly and told them that you were "adorable" and "gave me many a headache." I even enjoyed the relative dustiness of cleaning your innards every so often, swabbing the little corners with rubbing alcohol and making lots of dust bunnies in the corner of the room.

Alas, it was indeed too bright an existence with me. Last night, while I was busy listening to the marvelous Saturday night recordings of Colorfinger (SA), sailing away at a Cursed Isles adventure on Puzzle Pirates (as I often do now to kill time and to be adored by my SA crewmates), and contemplating on wedding planning... Everything suddenly turned black. Silence.

Except for one singular noise.

Squealing away while your power cord was still plugged in, I realized it was your time.

Your power supply had suddenly died. The saddest thing is that I cannot transplant a power supply, as your case is too cute and specialized to have just any old one (oh noooooo), and I can't get your plug out of the case anyway.

Thus, it must be that I bid thee farewell, my dear Antec Aria. You served me well through three different cities, and you have come to your final rest.

With deep regrets,
your momma ;_;

***
(Before you ask, the warranty is only for 3 years anyway.)

I am borrowing Jorghnassen's laptop in the meantime, while I wait for my new case to be delivered. The NSK1380 may fill in the same spot on my desk, but it certainly won't fill the same spot in my broken heart. :(

haha oh god the fallout

After I posted the bacon monstrosity here, I decided it would be a fantastic idea to present it to the SA forums. (It was mainly due to an SA member that I did post it in the first place.)

Boy did it go well. I got a small number of positive or constructive responses, but the vast majority decided to go for the Internet Goon responses. I'll let you see a sample:

- Maybe because of the description that I wrote the "maïs en crème" part, he didn't get it.


- Oh Horatia, you card. ;)


- The discussion moved to weird places.

Then I wrote a rebuttal to all the people who seemed to become culinary experts over an internet recipe of a "bacon pie" that not one of them had made before.

- He probably ate at that buffet too.


- LOLZ


- This one was cute. I wrote "C is for clogged arteries."


- He didn't get it.


- Good luck.


- I feel sorry for all you vegetarian quiche lovers.

At least it was all worth it in the end:

- He laughed his ass off. ;)

EDIT: Haha I forgot to check SASS.

EDIT 2: AND it's on Forum Friday's Monday.

ST Voyager's Stupid Sad Episode :(:(:(

I regularly visit the SA forums whenever it's open to the public. I justify this obsession: sometimes there are threads that are horrible, hilarious (or both), and often get posted into the SA Front Page like the Comedy Goldmines or Photoshop Phridays.

This afternoon I had the misfortune of reading the "MS-Paint the saddest thing" thread, and some of the things posted there (while not MS Painted) were pretty sad, like the Thai insurance commercials. I only watched one of them but boy is it gut-wrenching: Click this if you feel like crying pathetically.

I had the TV on right afterwards, and it happened to be the Star Trek: Voyager episode called "Course: Oblivion". To summarize: the entire crew and ship came to the realization that they were merely copies of the original Voyager and crew due to some chance encounter on some planet that made exact bio-copies of everything, and their bodies and everything else were breaking down because of some techno-jargon; they had the choice to continue leading their copied lives and to continue heading to Earth, or go back to the planet they originated from to survive.

Of course, things don't turn out so well for them. In fact... let's just say that I really think you should pay just a little more attention to mysterious piles of blobs when you walk by.

Goddamn that was sad. :(

---

Yes, it's been a pretty sad afternoon. What with Jorghnassen killing all the spiders and everything. :(

Happy Hallowe'en!

I would never do this. Seriously.


As a bonus Hallowe'en thingy, here's a Flash Tub short Jorgh and I really like. Although I don't advise hitting "next" on that page.

CIBC Run for the Cure

It's finally time! after all that ranting I made below about how much I hate my pedometer, I have sent out the spammails. If you haven't received one, count yourself lucky because the stupid form on the CIBC page is f@$%ed up. Here it is below:

---

I am participating in the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation CIBC Run for the Cure, on Sunday, October 1st and I am asking for your support for a cause that is very important to me.

This year, an estimated 22,300 Canadian women and 160 men will be diagnosed with breast cancer. We know research is making a difference. Lives are being saved through earlier detection, and more effective treatments are improving the quality of life for those who receive this devastating diagnosis.

I am one of 170,000 participants who will all be walking or running on Sunday, October 1st and I need your support. Donating online is quick, easy and secure! You can pay by credit card and within 30 minutes, you will receive a tax receipt for any donation that has been successfully received. Your donation will be added to the critical funds raised by the Run, and will be directed towards research, education and awareness programs.

I know that you people don't like spam. Especially when you are cash-strapped and see that this email looks like a phishing thing and someone is asking for money. And on top of that, you probably haven't heard from me forever. Or ever. But I'm saying this is 100 percent legit, and I am 1000 percent committed to this run. (Typo? You decide.)

And if you don't feel comfortable donating online, well, you're always free to see me in person and I'll hook you up with a tax receipt, etc. (though it's not instantaneous). Though it will entail travelling, but there's still time. ;)

Thank you. I appreciate your support!

- Eugenie, a.k.a. Ms. C

---

Don't forget to click on the link to check my progress. Or any of the links anywhere.

Tales of Quebec City and Her Disgusting Ways

I was watching this guy (probably from the apartment building across the driveway) sweep around the garbage bin. Oh my god, I thought. Maybe the landlord or someone with a brain finally decided to pick up all the crap around the driveway and parking lot. Maybe they're actually going to sweep the entire lot! Maybe, just maybe, someone will remove that huge branch that got cut off the tree, and pull up the roots of the smaller tree that got chopped down for absolutely no reason!

The guy pushed the broom around the parking space behind the garbage bin, spreading the sand and junk a bit more, shoveled up the crap and disappeared.

Just when I thought that people around here couldn't be more selfish or stupider.

---

I have determined that it is frustrating to live in this city. I found that I am not alone, though, as I browsed the shallower depths of the internet.

Though Jorghnassen is constantly skeptical of the wild animals of the internet, I truly believe that a guy is currently stranded in Vieux-Quebec and is seeking aid. His story is that he was fired from a language monitor job at a school on the south shore, and he is living in a hostel on his last small change. (But there's more to that story.) Of course, I am also skeptical of anyone I don't personally know on the internet, but I could not help but feel terrible that nobody on the SA forum could volunteer to help the guy. Why? Because there just isn't anyone of the registered hundred thousand people living in this particular city.

Jorghnassen is completely against helping the guy out, but I can't help him either because I don't have a forums account, I don't trust internet strangers any more than he does, and I don't have a way to contact him anyway.

The second story I will tell is about a woman who is apparently "hanging by a thread" living here. She is just as frustrated at not having employment and having little career options for a person from the West. (Oh those ROC-ians.) I made some suggestions to her (you'll be able to tell by the comments), as she seems to think that the only options here are telemarketer, interviewer, or webcam-whore.

Well, maybe. I'd like to think that even unilinguals can still survive here by not remaining unilingual.

It remains to be seen if I should start forming a community of frustrated anglos living in Quebec City. The VEQ really isn't doing a great job retaining us pathetic young people. :(

Something's Coming...

I don't know / what it is / but it is / gonna be greaaaaaat!

There are two beans sprouting!!! And there are other chinese vegetables actually growing!

About an hour ago, I noticed these two kids from the building across the driveway poking around in the tulip garden. Puzzled, I let them play around some more, seeing that they weren't pulling up things or stepping on the bed. Then the girl ran away but the boy spoke up: "Il y a plein de limaces!"

Wha-?

In his palm, the squirming slug struggled slowly in its slime. The boy reported that he had already picked out all the slugs from the flowerbed. I merely acknowledged him and waddled off to water the vegetables.

This explains why there's been a foam baseball bat nearby for the last two weeks.

Another thread popped up (or pooped up) on the SA forums for more covers of video game music. I don't know any of those posted. I think the next one I make will be a bit more obscure for amateurs of old school video games.

Tales of Gardening Feats

My mum, brother and I took the time this afternoon to get some flowers for my dad's grave and plant them. I finally brought the plastic green dividers that I bought from the school's rummage sale last year. I also finally got to dig up old useless roots in the soil and plant living things in the bed. Like LIVE flowers. Anyway, it's looking a lot better now. Such a pretty day...

Some cute LOST gifs made by an SA goon.

---

I was working the last two days so I hadn't posted. One of the things I noticed is that students were definitely going insane. Secondary 1 to secondary 5... they were all going positively insane. It is warm, it is green, and it is SUMMER. I got fed up with having nobody and nothing to back up any discipline cases (especially being a supply teacher), so they were treated to a two-day WTF marathon where anything went. Fortunately, the more sensible ones were plodding along fine, but the crazies were just absolutely crazy. These are 17 year old mental cases I'm talking about.

If it were up to me, I'd have expelled their asses a long time ago, or just let them go out to the workforce and try their stupid antics and see how long they last when their boss asks them to do something and they defiantly yell "NO."

Jorghnassen requested Chicoutimi, but I thought it would be more interesting with the whole Saguenay region. 

Tour of My Neighbourhood

Following my habit of reading the SA forum, not joining because it costs $10US (although that might change into $10CA at this rate) and then posting about the topic here, I give you a Tour of My Neighbourhood (versus "Tour of My Town" because I really, really don't know that much, come to think of it).




WARNING: large file size (~2 MB)
Goddamn let me fix this problem... >:( Picasa won't let me send large photo sizes :(

EDIT: OK, I've made the above image into an image map, so you'll have to click the different quadrants to get one part at a time.

Those of you who aren't too familiar with Quebec, there's very little public transit going out to the really boonie-like places. For instance, the movie theatre does have a bus line going there... once every two hours or something equally as ridiculous. Also, the entire city is white so there's not much reason to put "REDNECKS LIVE HERE" everywhere.

---

Yet another article about Islands. Hilarious (and at the same time, NOT hilarious) if you know what is going on there, and you know who the article is talking about...

Something Terrible

This was inspired by the SA thread. I had not learned tact until I was in university. 

Dumpster Diving

I haven't done it before, but I am certain there is a definite possibility near where I live. Some of you know that I live near the mall, in the area where they are very quickly building new places to waste your money at. Within the last couple of years, they have built:

• A Wal-Mart


• Krispy Kreme


• Future Shop


• Archambault


• Pier 1


• Deco Decouvertes


• ??? I forgot the name of that electronics store


• Omer Deserres


• And many more!

I find it a complete waste of space. The size of the buildings are massive, and the parking lots and traffic ensure that if you walk between these buildings, you are guaranteed to get run over by some irate gas pedal-crazy SUV driving suburban mum.

Anyway the point is that I want to try the scavenger hunting of these outlet boxes. I was inspired by this SA forum thread (which will not be accessible forever, due to the constant archiving and the paying-money-to-look-at-its-archives thing). In the thread, the divers surface booty of food, random crap that you wouldn't want even as hobos, and questionable clothing. On the other hand, when they dumpster dive, the choice of dumpster will definitely determine the quality of the haul. I would *LOVE* to find a vacuum cleaner to replace this piece of crap that my mum still insists on me hauling around.

(When I get a good picture, I'll post it here eventually. Then you'll know what I'm talking about.)

So who would like to go with me? Lil V? No, nevermind; you wouldn't be able to carry as much in your small arms, as we run away from livid hobos. Well, whoever wants to give it a shot, I'll throw in a free meal. (One that doesn't come from the dumpster.)

Everybody was Kung-fu Fighting!

T-5; 12:00 p.m. on the dot ++ 33 minutes - felt like i was gonna throw up in the middle of it ++ 500 paces from home ~150 m!

I gave up on the song names. Unless you have ideas.

---

"Ah yeah, ah yeah, you gotta believe!" Nostalgia is always a big seller. For instance, Ghostwriter, the series that was on PBS and not the "new" one on CBS, was one of our favourite shows in our pre/early teen days. At least for some of us. Ok, maybe I was the only one who watched the dang thing. Anyway, it was uncanny how sometimes when you look too hard, you find people in reality who look like those on television. Which happened at my school, actually. Well, I thought he did anyway. Not only that, but B also thought our friend's best guy friend in another country looked like Jamal (Sheldon Turnipseed). Should we actually ever get another look at the photo, I would highly doubt it anyway.

I digress. It was a thread on the Something Awful forums a few days ago. But they mentioned on that thread the absolute best math show ever for kids was on PBS, the wonderfully 90s quétaine SQUARE 1. My brother would even watch the "Mathman" segment where a Pac-man clone with a football helmet would mouth-flappingly wander around the board looking for specific numbers or shapes that would satisfy the quest of the day. It was an extremely rare skit where he would actually not fail, since every single other skit he would defiantly eat something wrong and get pulsated to bits by a tornado. We all gasped in unison at that miracle.

What does that have to do with me? Sort of how I expect people to react when I tell them I finish the 5 km run without stopping.