If you don't wanna hear me bitch (even though I think this is kinda funny), then read no further.

I had a bad past couple days. I typically wish for snow so that we have sweeter conditions on the slopes. Unfortunately that snow came down by the bucket-full on the lower mainland which pretty much cut the expected attendance at my little get-together at Jupiter to less than half.

Add to that the fact that I barely made it there (slipped sideways on several occasions, many close calls) and never did make it back home... had to crash at Alex's. Not sleeping comfortably in my own bed usually means I have nightmares, which I did, and wake up feeling really exhausted, which I do.

But wait, that's not all. I'm still suffering a sour stomach from yesterday's greasy dim sum so I hardly feel like doing anything for NYE, but that's ok cuz the decision was already made for me. There's 9" of snow in Coquitlam, most of it just sitting there in a pile on the side streets. And forget not, the plowed streets in this hilly backwards city are covered in black ice. I think someone up there has it in for me so rather than risk life and limb to feign a celebratory mood at some party, I'm spending my first NYE at home by myself (since I was ever allowed to go out at all).

When I'm in a shitty mood I seem to find depressing shit on the web. Ok, this one is actually kinda funny:

I just saw the funniest link from an MSN article about how companies have been trying so hard to create the ultimate all in one phone/PDA/game/mp3player/digicam etc. and most the time it's basically crap. The site is full of pics submitted by people poking fun at the absurdity of some of these gadgets.

Be sure to flip through all the pages cuz there's some super funny pics here Side Talkin. I particularly like this one.

I went for dim sum with parents today. We don't tend to do that often among friends. Day time activities in general dont happen often with us but that's a different story. Anyways, I don't think I'm used to the grease that comes with dim sum foods. Somehow I can stomach the occasional McD's or In and Out Burger but after dim sum, I always suffer a stomach ache for a good few hours afterward. My mom thinks that you have to go out and eat greasy food once in a while to keep your body accustomed to it or you'll get the runs every time. I have a hard time believing half of what my parents say for fear that it comes from the same line of reasoning as theories like wet hair giving you a nasty cold (did Chinese people of their generation not study biology or what?). One thing I did find out for sure (well I think for sure since I asked a guy doing his residency) is that people who move to a warm place will actually develop thinner blood such that returning home to a cold place becomes really difficult to bear. So there's the explanation for why I'm having such a hard time dragging myself out of the house, much less up to a mountain. I just cannot handle the cold anymore. It's been snowing here in my neighbourhood the last few days and it is cold as f*&% (that would be between -4 to about 4 C at best). Maybe that is causing the grease in my stomach to coagulate.

You know you're getting old when you pass up going to a friend's get together to watch a Meryl Streep movie on TV and finish a reading a novel. Even I'm slightly disgusted by my lameness. OK well at least the movie was awesome. One True Thing I think it was called. Renee Zellweger was in it too. The only thing I didn't like was the title of the movie because it took me the entire two hours to remember what the movie was called.

1:03 am. Time to finish my book. Tomorrow I'll start my needle point project (j/k)

Re: my post about helmets. I ended up getting a Giro Sonic (youth helmet) in a pearl white with orange logo. $60 US. I was scared all the places here would be sold out of every small size but it seems that MEC and stores like SportMart are carrying helmets now too and really cheap. Oh well. I can still argue I paid less tax and the Sonic looks pretty close to the Giro Nine.

I'll prolly be up at Whistler for the weekend and Cypress on New Years Day (with Denny visiting from SF and Alex). Anyone who wants to join us, just call me.

Wow that was a long break from blogging. I had Joe and Jane in for a whirl wind week of partying and sight seeing in SF before packing up to head to Vancouver for the holidays. Now I'm here in good ol' rainy, grey and cold vancouver. Ya gotta love the friends who call you everyday to see what you're up to and drag you out.... as for the ones you go out of your way to call out but won't leave their house to see you... bah to you guys.

Got in Sunday night.. just stayed home. Monday went to Lougheed and Coquitlam Center and, my favourite, Winners to buy stuff. Watched the hockey game and chilled with Clara, Stan, Al and Herman at Wazubeez. Great artichoke dip but hot chocolate tasted like Quik. Went to another favourite place, MEC, today to get me a laptop backpack (for the equiv of approx. $38 USD YAY can't beat that), got simon a sweet top from UpperCut (Hougee, that plug's for you).

Tonite, hooking up with Joe, Jane and Alex, my favouritist people for sweets at Cheesecake etc. The place with fewer items on the menu than even In and Out Burger. *sigh* Rain forecasted for the next 4 days. Damn, I gotta stop taking that blue sky for granted!

So Jong introduced me to Bit Torrent to download stuff from www.suprnova.org. Got lots of good stuff but I freakin accidentally canceled my download of Better Luck Tomorrow at 82%. Dammit. Is there a way to resume? Also, my download of Gothica has sat at 99% for the last 4 days. How do you remedy that?

My next big (well big by my standards now that I'm poor) purchase is a snowboarding helmet. Anyone got any suggestions? I want it to fit my small shrunken head, be nice and light and not too expensive. Bonus if it doesn't look horrible.

I am the world's biggest procrastinator. I'm getting worse and worse with age. Thanks to me there's a ton of laundry to do, no toilet paper and I have about 10 pages of my short story to finish before I head out to tutor at 3:30. I'm so screwed.

Sometimes in life there are difficult choices. Often you're faced with dilemmas that require swift decision making. Unfortunately some people have problems with life's easier choices e.g. whether to go east or west when taking the Cesar Chavez exit. One fellow in a U Haul truck was decidedly, well, indecisive and drove straight into the concrete barrier that separated the lane going west from that going east. Man, UHaul is going to make him pay up big time for the damage he did to that truck. Maybe the man is a martyr (figuratively speaking, not literally cuz he wasn't dead) for all those driving south on the 101 that day who suffer from the nagging disease called indecisiveness. Sometimes there's just no time to mull things over or change your mind multiple times. Just pick a direction and see where it takes you. It won't kill you to back track and go the other way later on... just a little bit of time is all. Not being able to make the decision, however, can kill you. Well that's my deep thought of the day.

OK so I recall doing all this natural shit to combat the ants at my last two apartments. What is it about Foster City and ants. Anyways, it didn't work all that well. So this time I headed straight for the Raid. The one without the offensive fumes. I sprayed the shit out of all the seams along the window, mopped up any ants with a Raid-soaked paper towel and waited. Well looks like it did the trick. As much as I like to do the environmentally friendly, all natural thing, sometimes the environmentally harmful method is just clearly the better choice e.g. Raid versus leaving out dried cucumber, disposable feminine protection versus the washable pads. (yes there is such a thing, they used to sell them at little craft sales at SFU.)

Ants have decided to hide out from the rain by entering our kitchen windowsill to hang out. Some remedies I just found online:
- Johnson's baby powder (interferes with breathing and walking)
- water and bleach solution
- water and citrus dish detergent
- cloves
- cinnamon
- chili flakes
- Lysol
- Windex
- boric acid
- vinegar
- WD 40

San Francisco is a big city, but sometimes weird things happen that make it feel so small. The bouncer at Loft 11 tonite saw Kent's Ontario ID and said... Ah, Canadian but not Vancouver. And Willy and I said no we're all from vancouver. He says, oh yah? I'm from Port Coquitlam!!! What kind of coincidence is that? How the hell many people even know where Coquitlam/PoCo is? Apparently he graduated from Moody Sr. Then at the Crepe a Go Go, Shannph meets a guy (don't ask me how) who graduated from his dep't at UT in '97. Oh we also met a nice couple from Sweden. Very friendly. Not that any of us are Swedish but we had a pleasant conversation none the less. Ya gotta love meeting friendly folks out partying, what could be better.

I had an interview with a start up in the city on 2nd street @ Folsom today. Right in the plaza where I used to go to Lee's Deli to grab a sandwich and worked out at 24 hour fitness after a long day at Scale Eight. Ah the memories. Back when everything was so new, somewhat scary and so unstable. Wait, my life is still unstable, what am I talking about?

Anyways, there were two security guys telling people who looked lost to sign in at the lobby (2 guys, overkill or what?). Took the elevator to the third floor and almost fell over when I walked into their office. It was so stark and bare, you'd think it were empty if you didnt see the tops of people's heads over the cube walls. No wall hangings, no plants, no papers tacked to the cube walls, no awards framed in the waiting area. Next to reception, just two leather seats and an end table with a book of photos of San Francisco. I was walked down the aisle between the cubes to the meeting room for my interview. Each person had a black jacket hung neatly on a hook on the outside of their cube. I swear to God they were even the same jacket. So eery. I didn't look too closely but i dont think these people even had photos or kids' artwork or the tchotchskies you typically see littered in a high tech office space. They've been around since the late 90s and have moved offices but typically people move all their shit with them too. Hell, people at NetIQ had fish tanks, toaster ovens and bar fridges at their cubes. I wonder if they have a "no personal items on display" rule in effect or something.

Holy shit dude. When I googled my own name last year, my ryze page would get listed somewhere on page 3 after all the Vanessa Paradis fan pages (my last name happens to be a common French word). Now I take #1, 2 and 3 spot (and the other Vanessa comes in 4th). I think I'm now starting to worry about my anonymity. Not that I write anything incriminating in my blog or give anyone a reason to stalk me. Frankly, I just bitch a lot about how much life sucks and how certain people are idiots. But still, it's kinda spooky. Hmm I should capitalize on my new found online popularity and try and sell shit. Anyone wanna buy a set of 3 wine glasses (I broke the 4th) or an anti-social hamster with skin problems and patches of fur missing?

How long has it been raining and grey now? It really sucks for someone whose mood depends on the whether. I f*cking hate rain. I even hate the people who like rain because they think it's romantic or cleansing or some shit like that. Rain has a way of making me feel like tranquilizing myself until it goes back up to the Pacific Northwest where it f*cking came from. Today sucks. I can't get anything done except surf the Canadian news and laugh at people who fell off ski lifts and got buried in tree wells. Maybe it's cuz Xmas is coming and I kind of hate that too.