This used to be a patch of bush and such that little birdies and bugs could frolic, make babies, and drive out hawks and crows and such. Then developers bought it and turned it into condo land. This is a growing trend around this area - no longer the boonies, it is now suburbia. :( 
FUN FACT!:
In a normal day, whatever that may be around here, I will either piss off or be piss off by mama at least two hundred times.
FUN FACT! #2:
Most, if not all, student-teachers who graduate after university don't give a crap about their parents afterwards and get bombarded with job offers at their desired locations.
FUN FACT!!!11!!:
Ontario teacher certification suxx0rs.
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.
Mama's being all pissy again. This is her point of view.
1) I am too stupid and ignorant of the "real world," I can't communicate properly, and I can't "yell at the kids" to "make them listen to me," thus I will never be a good teacher, or any kind of teacher whatsoever.
2) She has known enough people in her lifetime that she knows how people should act in certain roles. Which is also why I will never be a good teacher.
3) I sit around at home doing godknowswhat because I enjoy it, and I don't do any jobhunting whatsoever.
4) The internet is stupid and high-speed cable is completely useless because it's too expensive.
She went on and on into a huge blanket lecture (yell?) about how I will never amount to any sort of teacher and that I should just do whatever, and sometimes lie in job applications... especially to be hired as a secretary (or whatnot) since it apparently doesn't matter that the job qualifications state that you have to be vocationally trained in secretarial studies.
Today: Nestle Nesquik Strawberry Flavoured Syrup (a.k.a. radioactive red goop)
Comments: I don't know why mama bought it, but it's been in the fridge long enough. Anyway, I went out to buy 4 L of milk and my mama yelled at me for getting so much when I'll be the only one to drink it.
Review: The syrup is translucent, thick, and very red. Kids love eating things that are red or chocolatey-brown. I'm sure if they were told that "natural" red food colouring comes from insects, they'd still eat it. Anyway, the ingredients are basically sugar, corn syrup, glucose/fructose (etc.), water, and red. The bottle is cute though - it's the notorious Quik Bunny (now renamed Nesquik Bunny I suppose), happily guzzling down huge glassfuls of syrup-flavoured milk the same size as itself.
The syrup nestles itself very snugly at the bottom of the glass of milk. Using my cute birthday present from Jorgh's parents, a "milk frother," I very quickly turned my drink a mysterious shade of pink. The overall experience is rather unsettling. Slight strawberry flavour is present, but it tastes like sweet milk. I enjoy chocolate milk as much as the next non-lactose-intolerant individual, but I have frightening memories of receiving a glass of milk with a good inch of undissolved sugar at the bottom of it. Needless to say, I'd rather be having the chocolate-sugar mix.
Rating: 3/5 just for being an interesting distraction.
Eddie asked me to take a picture of myself in the cute jacket set that he and Rebecca gave as a graduation present. I don't have the pants from the set in this photo, but I am wearing some, yes.
Now that I have nearly unlimited uploading and hosting for my Yahoo photo album, and this nifty Hello picture thingy feature, I have noticeably slacked off in the photo editing department. Why? Well, it's time consuming for sure, but it's not like I didn't enjoy doing it. It's because of one thing: this computer is f@#$ing too slow.
Let's say I want to take a picture of about 600 x 400 pixels. That's pretty near the max resolution of my camera anyway. Suppose I take it to Photoshop 7, which takes a minute to load, and then play around with it. A complicated filter that could take about 5 seconds on an average PC of today takes damn near 5 minutes to run on this machine.
I try to tell Photoshop to select certain blobs of an image and it'll sit and think for a moment. "Well," the computer thinks aloud, "I think this person wants me to take this selection, but I'm not sure if th-" The mouse slips and I click by accident something else. "Holy sh#@&$*!" the computer bleeps, "M#$%!#&^?@!!!" Sparks fly, small explosions and mushroom clouds, you know the rest.
In short, I like computers. Even this one. I think I'll take it outside and shoot it.
