T-5

As it stands right now, it seems that I will be spending yet another birthday alone, or at least pathetically reminiscing.

Oh, and it seems my bike is still kaput. Figures.

Memories

I am both appalled and fascinated that I have a short term memory loss problem. Appalled, for the obvious reasons. One doesn't pride oneself for forgetting seeing someone merely days ago, or having eaten an hour ago, or even what was said a minute ago. (Though I'm certain I'm not as problematic as others who do have more extreme cases.)

Fascinated... because I tend to forget what I write. I have probably written as much as several times around the Earth by now, but I doubt I can even recognize my writings from even a month ago. If I discover my own short stories or a journal entry from ages ago, I will actually sit down and read these things as though a total stranger has written them. These mysterious events that occured in my blog entries from three years ago are actually new again to me. I don't remember experiencing such fierce feelings of joy, frustration, or regret... well, except the obvious.

My technique for trying not to forget anything important is to physically write it down in my agenda, on the calendar sitting right above my monitor, and/or then tell someone else about it. Though it's hard when I forget to do that within the first few minutes after hearing the bit of news. And then it's also a matter of not forgetting to refer to my agenda every so often.

What I don't do is post-it notes. They're alright sometimes but I don't see them as obviously after more than two are stuck up somewhere unusual. Even if put in usual spots, I will mentally push them aside as something obscuring my view!

My pet peeve is forgetting what I want to say just before I say it. My pet peeve is also forgetting that I want to say something.

... I don't really communicate well in person, it seems...

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In other news, my bike has a flat again and has been sitting here for a month pathetically reminding me every day about it.

Run a Little

T-14; 10:40 a.m. - bike 15 minutes for warm up because my back hurts, before jogging for 5 minutes. + got further than the first time - didn't eat beforehand + ate bento afterwards

Poof!

Oh noes! My (not so) sweet ride! Noooooo!!!


Nabeshinnoooo!!!!!!


A new phone, pie/pie, and a glass of milk! 


I lost my lotto ticket today. :( My mum was kinda peeved.

I got my bike fixed though, so it's alright now. And I bought another ticket, but I'll be constantly thinking "I could have won if I haven't..." for the rest of my life... unless I win with this ticket...

I Kick Yo Butt

I want to be able to look at this person and think to myself, "Goddamn I'm going to get the crap kicked out of me by her!" All I can think of when I look at her is, "What the hell are you doing?"

When I'm bored I also take pictures of land development. I was (and still am) pissed off when I found out that they were extending this highway, du Vallon...

The reasons I have for being pissed:

• Most of the recent land development around this neighbourhood disturbed the local flora and fauna for ugly-assed condos (not apartments either) and stupid, useless highways.


• Increased traffic expected on du Vallon, which is already terribly congested, and also has the worst onramp in the freaking city near Charest.


• Urban sprawl. It's pretty gross. The area where you see Walmart in that photo is already the home of a sprawl maul. Right across from that is the Galeries de la Capitale.


• They'll have to either dig the bike path and sidewalk into the underpass at that intersection or make a gigantic overpass. It doesn't seem that they took bikes or people into consideration when they first blocked off pedestrian traffic, forcing them to the other side of the road where no sidewalk nor path existed in the first place... so my guess is that the bike path will be the last thing on anyone's minds when they cut the rope or whatever stupid pat-on-the-back celebration to open the extention.


• Of all the road projects the city could focus on, like fixing the crap up near Loretteville (where I had the bumpiest, most potholey, ass-pounding bike coastings down), or making roads safer for bikes, or putting in sidewalks where there should be some (eg. near schools and hospitals?)... or even putting in more effing trees on that goddamn road near the parliament building or something. Really. The city focuses on building an extention to a highway when better urban planning is needed.

In Calgary, Ed told Wesley and I the most traumatizing thing I think I heard on that trip out west. (And I experienced quite a few things that disturbed me sufficiently.)

Q: What is the sister city of Calgary?
A: Uh... oh goddamn...

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the crazy-assed urban planning of Calgary and the increased urban sprawl of her sister city are related. Fortunately, I don't think Quebec has as much to worry about in terms of suburbia because it's almost 400 years old and the smaller cities here were already established. Calgary, on the other hand, is much younger, and has to deal with the gated communities that sprung up all over the place at the same time.

/I still can't believe that there's a naval museum in Calgary.

Biking Adventure

I did it!
The actual path was much longer because I cannot take highways by bike, otherwise I'd get run over by irate army guys/berating old fogies looking to score another point in their bike-killing SUVs.

I arrived to find that my school had given the job to another person higher up on the priority list. :( Thus I am stranded for the year or until someone croaks or something. I'll be heading downtown tomorrow to give my resume to the schools there, but *not* by bike (cuz my ass hurts too much from today's ride).

On another note, I updated the comic. I also found out last night that they changed the name "Keenspace" to "Comicgen" back in July, which means I have to change every freaking thing on all the pages to *.comicgen and my banners and images etc. Goddammit, WTF!?

I bike very little. My butt hurts from doing it two days in a row. 


By the way, this and other photos are now uploaded in the album.

So much for a bike ride...

Realize that I haven't been on a bike since last summer, and I haven't done any physical exercise for just as long. I am way too tired to head to Sillery today, for a number of reasons (that just happen to be causational):

1. I have so many freaking bug bites on my legs that were probably caused by mosquitos the size of beachballs, that
2. I went to bed at 4 a.m., dying of itch and then
3. I woke up at 9 a.m. itching like hell.
4. So I was so groggy and itchy that I neglected to eat much of anything, if I even ate at all (though I don't remember)
5. and then I just went biking down to the grocery store and back, but my legs gave up when I got home! Talk about pathetic... :(

I will go biking (further... much much further) tomorrow, as I am determined to get out of this disgusting fat slump.

I Want to Ride My Bicycle

The most retarded thing about living in Quebec is that there are huge bike paths sprawling across the city, but none that actually go from "down" town (which is pretty much anywhere except near the St-Lawrence river) to uptown, which ironcally is downtown. I am left with about 4 paths to hazard...

1) go uphill from St. Sacrement, a huge S-shaped road that weaves itself through some thickets and such, while inclining at about 15% or something huge. The advantage is that you can be relatively assured that no one will run you over from intersections, as there are none. (This leads up to Holland and Chemin Ste Foy, which is relatively busy.)

2) go uphill from Marie l'incarnation, which is like riding a gravel pit. There is an intersection at the first bend, and another one at the second bend, which have neither lights nor very patient drivers. Also has about 15% incline but sprawled out a bit further.

3) go really really far east until the railroad tracks cross with the road, then bear part of the highway south to take a less inclined path (I believe, I haven't tried this yet), then go back west. This would probably take a good hour longer than the first two paths.

4) go really really far west along the smaller tributary river (St Charles) until reaching the old port. Then maniacally head up the old city streets, or head out around the tip to go up the even crazier 30% incline to the Plains of Abraham.

Being the weak bastard I am, I never managed to make it up any of these hills without collapsing after 1 minute of pedalling. What happens is that I end up walking most of the hill, watching most of the Olympic-trained bikers pass by upwards effortlessly, and then relax when I get to the top. The fun part is going down - my brakes don't work very well.

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I rode by the Leclerc "Nutri-art division" factory on Thursday. For some reason it smelled like strawberries... but not just any strawberry smell - it was like the smell of Frankenberry. Can it be true? ...!