Roadkill Calculus

The roads are littered with sad hairy flattened corpses of unrecognizable animals, now that spring pounced upon the region. It started as soon as the ice and snow started melting, some weeks ago, after some sudden snow storms and sudden sweltering sunny days. It all resulted in the now five or six new splotches per day, covering the asphalt like mini misplaced rugs. I have to drive by them twice a day; the morning, when they mysteriously appear as fresh bloody mounds, and in the afternoon, when they are no longer mounds but pancakes.

Arriving at school, I have to check the underside of the Rav4 to make sure there are no crazy stains or small animals lodged in or under fender and bumper. It only makes sense that there are so many little buggers killed per day - this is farmer country, indeed. But to have so many of them pop up in a semi-urbanized area like Waterloo is astounding; I don't even have to go out to the farmlands to note the appearance of fuzzy wuzzy's cuzzy and friends, 2D in the middle of the street. Although the appearance of the fox last year did raise our suspicion that this "city" is not all that city-like.

Speaking of roadkill... the calculus class is wrapping up tomorrow with the final exam bright and early on Saturday morning. I am fortunate that I only have a mid-sized pile of final exams to mark, input into the gigantic spreadsheet file and send the marks by email to the school before Tuesday. Dear readers must have noted that I have been particularly busy in the last three months, playing BG and BG2, oversleeping, making crafts, hiding out in ultimately sad, sad malls, eating and writing about it, and generally whining.

Actually, besides not jogging, it's not much different from when I was mulling about unemployed. So, no, I don't have an excuse for not blogging.

The result of all this is that I am finally allotted a week off, after 12 weeks nonstop of "working." :)

Though it doesn't change the fact that I still have to avoid driving over lumps of flattened fur on the road. :(

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To change the tone, as I often do, especially with all the crap I wrote about roadkill, this is the cutest thing I've seen all year. So far. :)

Readers' Most Anticipated Update!!!

Hello and greetings from Waterloo, to all 5 of you! Thanks to Norm and y'all for coming to the duck supper last week, and for Davy allowing us to invite ourselves to karaoke at his place afterwards. Jorghnassen and I arrived in Kitchener (Waterloo) safely without incident on Wednesday, and we were fortunate enough to have a temporary accommodation offered to us by the UWaterloo people, housed in the second level of the Health Services building on campus. [This will become a detail that will render the later part of my post quite ironic.]

We set about setting Jorgh up at the university bright and early, and also apartment hunting on Thursday. The rent around here is on average higher (or just on par) than living in NDG, although the quality of the apartment might be better here. Nonetheless, everything seems far apart because the entire city of Waterloo can be summed up as follows: bland, peppered with mini-malls.

It's not to say that there aren't any interesting details in Waterloo. There are those flocks of Canadian geese that live in and around campus. We saw a fox(!) running by as we walked north of campus, and a rabbit just around the HS building. (Oh yeah, UWat likes to use acronyms for everything here.) Chipmunks and squirrels galore eat the chestnuts and seeds that fall to the ground everywhere. Odd plants grow wild in the Research in Motion (RIM) park. And most importantly, rush hour traffic encourages pedestrians to cross the street. Whatever is considered their rush hour-I've seen more cars backed up on my driveway than that street considered as an artery.

But Thursday was unfruitful. We visited a very disgustingly overpriced 2 bedroom apartment between UWat and Wilfred Laurier University (WLU) that I very bluntly stated, "not worth 1XXX$ a month." We then walked a terrific 5 km to an apartment in Kitchener that was much better in comparison, but killed my feet with more blisters.

Friday, Jorgh called half a dozen places, and we had two apartment buildings to visit, also about 6 km apart. Lucky for me, I had a second pair of shoes, and lucky for Jorgh, he carried everything. We visited a place that was very tempting due to its proximity to a "plaza" (minimall) with a Sobeys, which just happened to stock...

Jorgh: OMG LOOOOOK WE HAVE TO GET THAT APARTMENT!
Ms. C: WHAT? WHY?!?
Jorgh: CRETONS!!!11!1!

Anyway, we visited the second building and also found it somewhat appealing due to a 1 bedroom apartment (that seemed to be rare in our apartment hunting) just recently vacated and readily available, once they cleaned it with an industrial vacuum or Swiffer napkin the size of a small planet. Nonetheless, it was a bit cheaper in the end, and seemed to be close to all sorts of different amenities - but no Sobeys across the street with cretons. It was a tough call, actually, but Jorgh decided to go with the 1 bedroom, as it was easier to furnish and I had already tired of this city...

I've yet to describe the temporary accommodations that we are occupying for another two days. It's a tastefully furnished apartment with furniture and decorations from another era, and accessories like a television and telephone from the times when people didn't care about how pointy things were shaped or how beige things could be coloured. It has a loud ventilation system, probably to keep out rodents from its ducts. Thankfully enough, it is equipped with a washer and dryer, and fridge and stove, and enough plates, utensils, cups, bowls and other kitchen things to not have to eat out every meal. All in all, tidy enough for temporary living.

The bed is another story. And probably the couch.

I developed a very sudden case of hives over the last two days or so, covering my shins, back, neck, scalp, and elbows. It looks very much like a bad allergic reaction, and from the looks of it, from the bed. Last night my throat happily obliged as well, and Jorgh and I have both stayed up in the wee hours trying not to go into massive panic attacks due to blocked airways and other happy fun events. [Recall previous post on paranoia.] We blew steam by cursing everything from the university HS building we were sitting on top of, to the poop of dust mites. I had washed all the sheets and pillow cases of the bed in hot water the day everything started itching like mad.

Today, I was advised by Jorgh's very nice doctor-parents to take (more) Benadryl, use non-perfumed Aveno lotion and wash without soap. Jorgh wanted to move into a hotel room but due to a certain beer festival in this region reputedly the biggest outside of the country of origin, it is nigh impossible to get any room now. Anyway, I'm spending as much time outside of the apartment as possible, as I found myself going nuts over lack of internet usage, something the apartment lacks. Not to mention the constant and cripping itching all over my poor wretched body that I spent so much time running into shape.

I know Jorghnassen promised he'd get a blog up and running, but I think he's still gathering his thoughts for a first post. ;)

Rasterbate Yeah

The other silly image project. :)

This is what the internet called "Rasterbation." It is a process where you take an image and blow it up onto many sheets of paper (or simply the blowing up part), stick it together, and hang it up somewhere and have other internet geeks gawk at it. The finished image can consist of the halftone or coloured dots style (like newspaper prints), pixellation, lines, or any other kind of printing process. The idea is that you print it big. And take a picture of it. And show the world.

A Bunch of Posts!

Damn right!

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Vacation was good and bad in Alberta and TO.


The whole reason why we went to Calgary in the first place. Congratulations, Ilinca and Curtis!

Good: seeing my cousins in TO and Alberta, wedding meal, visiting Wesley, Banff and Lake Louise, Calgary Zoo (hence the sudden red panda craze), no heat wave (thank God), Aki and Betty's "vampire dog" Bobo after it calmed down.


One of four asian elephants at the Calgary Zoo. So cute!

Bad: how sad MH was, crazy urban planning in Cowtown, the misleading provincial-tax-lessness (because of more expensive goods), lack of any actual good chinese food in the two-block Chinatown, homeliness, homelessness, lack of humidity, lack of any plushie cows in the entire freaking city, driving back from MH (I thought I was going to *DIE*), Aki and Betty's "vampire dog" Bobo when it bit Michelle and Brian


Ugly photo of pretty mountains next to Banff. You should go there!

Funny: more pick-up trucks than SUVs in Montreal, "honour system" train, cowboy hats, Albertan accent, crazy freaky people roaming, Aki and betty's "vampire dog" Bobo.


Bobo the "Vampire Dog." Bad dog!

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Anyway, I thought I would just tell you some projects I am (attempting to start) working on.

Firstly, the webcomic is still stuck in limbo, since I had an idea what to do a long, long time ago before I started drawing the damn thing. Then I lazily forgot what was going to happen, which led to a terrible, terrible standstill. I have every intention to complete the project, but it's massive. (Following the BG1 storyline, without all the sidequests and idiotic backtracking.) So I'm contemplating on that while I'm working on finishing the game. No, I haven't finished the game. Not once. No. Dammit.

I posted those BG portraits some weeks ago, so you're always free to use for your own personal games, or just to stare at and worship, or something equally as hilarious. I am working on some more portraits as well, just to fill out the necessary roles. (Like the triple-classed whatnot... eh, who am I kidding. That one'll probably look like a freak.) What I can't do very well is everything having to do with non-person features. Clothes, weapons, props, backgrounds, etc. - these are the things I will be featuring more often in my drawings.

I have been reading many mangas online. This led me to recall a story years ago I wanted to work on in manga form, though I am afraid to start drawing and stop, due to forgetting the story *coughwebcomiccough* ... so I am writing the whole thing out before drawing. I'll present a draft of a few chapters here when I finish. Just to note, the writing is presented in pseudo-manga form, so don't expect an award-winning novel format.

That's all folks!