Happy New Year! Bling!

Happy New Year, 2008!

Got another 8 hours of driving to go. At least we aren't lost. :P

Christmas 2007

Yes, this is my hand.

The ALEX Show

My mighty brother is having his graduation recital at McGill on the 16th of December. I don't know much else besides this at the moment, but I'll be updating this post when I get more details other than "PLZ COME TO THE MOST IMPORTANT DAY IN MY LIFE."

Anyway, he wants everyone to go to this event. Absolutely everyone. So if you're in Montreal on this day, please go for me, because if I can't make it (which is possible) I will be very, very, very sad, and I want everyone to tell me that he played like the genius he is. :(:):):)

EDIT: So he finally sent me the details. It's in Pollack Hall, 8:30 p.m. on the 16th.

EDIT 2: My, how terrible is this? He didn't even invite me to his Facebook group until I asked him where the thing was. >:(

Tourtière!? NOT. It's called MEAT PIE.

Ingredients:
Crust

• flour


• baking powder


• salt


• egg


• water


• milk


• brown sugar


• shortening

Meat

• ground pork


• veal


• onion


• celery


• garlic


• salt and pepper


• allspice or other spices

Low heat. Cook meat.


Oh wait. Chop celery and onions. Chop some more. Really small. Until Jorghnassen says it's small enough.


Dump it in. Mix it up, yeah.


Cook it low forever. Stir once a year.
Ok, an hour or so.


Take out the rivers of fat. (Seriously, it filled an entire bowl.) Cool overnight.

In the meantime, make the dough. Cool overnight too.


Roll the dough.


Cut the dough. One big disc, one little disc.


Fill the dough in a muffin tin.


Before!


After!


It said "EAT ME."

Colm Wilkinson

There were some problems. The moment we arrived at the Centre in the Square, the downtown Kitchener theater, we knew we were in for a bit of a mess. My purse malfunctioned, sealing the tickets and everything else inside and I almost had to cut it open with scissors. The people vacantly strutting about were on average older than Colm himself. Some obnoxious couple was sitting in front of us calling out crap, when he was trying to make friendly banter with the audience. The same couple's big heads were in the way when he broke out with the "Bring Him Home."

Nevertheless... the theater was indeed as acoustically awesome as Dennis (who is a teacher at the school and who coincidentally happened to be attending the show) claimed. The staff was friendly, the price of parking was not too embarrassingly high...

HE WAS AMAZING!

Let it be known that you haven't heard Danny Boy until you've heard it from an irish ex-pat who defined the roles of both the Phantom and Jean ValJean.

Happy birthday, Jorgh! -xox-

Run for the Cure (no 2007)

Regardless of the reasons, I didn't participate this year. :(

Telus Tells Us That Customers are Dumb and Should be Taken Advantage Of

Today's rant is not so angry and not full of rageahol, but it would have been ... about half an hour ago. I forgot by one day about topping up my cell with the Pay and Talk thing through Telus, and I was in for a mean surprise when I filled it this morning just before driving off to work in the Rav4. The account balance was zero, no thanks to my stupid memory, and the rate was now nearly doubled from 25c/min (ridiculous anyway) to a terrificly gouging 40c/min.

I was absolutely livid all day, but I didn't have time to rage at any service reps until I got home a while ago. I spent the whole day rehearsing in my head all the irate customer phrases that I always read about, where people make seriously silly or amusingly irritating demands to the service people.

I, myself, have never done any sort of negotiations (read: angry raving) in that sense, since I'm such a square that I follow the laws and regulations and other ridiculously arbitrary rules imposed by some faceless authority.

But after reading a few articles in the last few weeks about negotiations, creating opportunities, or just punching your way through a crowd (which I have had to do more recently like through Oxford Street, without the punching), I felt ready to give them the most convincing ANGRY IGNORANT LADY CUSTOMER conversation. The following dialog is an embellished paraphrasing.

Me: I just topped my account this morning with this card, and I want to know why my rate has changed.
Rep: You let your account go to zero. The rate goes up when you recharge. That's how it is.
Me: Wait, so you're telling me that since I missed recharging by one day, I can't get my rate back down?
Rep: You'll have to buy a 50 dollar top up card.
Me: I don't want to do that, that's ridiculous!
Rep: Sorry, that's how it is.

I'm not one to back down anymore, especially being so mad at stupid things lately. Like having to deal with my kids running around the computer class this afternoon clamoring at their classmates' computer components, going "This is not your own! OUR OWN!" (I'm so evil.)

Me: Well, I find this completely ridiculous. I try my best to top up every month, and this one time I miss the expiration by one day and I get this? I want to get my rate back!
Rep: Well we can change that just this one time.
Me: Yeah, you do that.

***ROCKIN'***

OK, well... I don't think this deserves a *rockin'* since I actually negotiated away the remaining balance that I did have, but it was much better to get my rate back by sacrificing the little balance I had, than to pay 50 dollars for another card that I was never going to use up anyway. (You'd have to look at the Telus Pay Per Talk plans to understand more how this works.)