The weirdest thing happened today. I mean, you won’t believe this.
I had two doctor appointments this morning. Separate ones that just happened to fall on the same day. One was at 8:00. The other was at 9:45. I finished the eight o’clock one at 8:45, leaving me an hour to get to the next one. Considering it was five minutes away, that was plenty. So I had time to kill. I could have gone to work, but as soon as I go there I would have had to leave. Going home for half-an-hour seemed pointless.
But the doctor had a nice waiting room. I had a newspaper and a laptop. I could easily entertain myself, and possibly get some work done. So I showed up for my appointment almost an hour early.
I didn’t have time to glance at the newspaper. They took me in, and ten minutes later I was done and out of there.
Can you believe that?!
I mean, that is the total opposite of every other doctor’s visit I’ve ever had.

I had my first acting class today. Nothing too exciting to report. I think I should be fine at this level. Two other people are in the same boat as I am, which makes 33% of the class.
But, as the saying goes; God never opens a window without closing a door. My Sunday evening improv jams have been cancelled. They were a lot of fun, although getting a bit crowded. A part of me is glad, because I’ve been needing to recover on Sundays from all the stuff I’m doing. So this should give me a chance.

It has been a miserable weekend. Specifically the weather. However, this works out well for me.
The Die-Nasty Soap-a-thon is on. (53 hours of improv, non-stop.) So anytime I want entertainment, I can just wander across the street (figuratively) and watch quality improv. Bad weather is conducive to this, because then I don’t feel guilty if I’m inside for many hours.
However, the problem is that life keeps intruding. There are things that I need to do that take me away from seeing the Soap-a-thon.
For instance, this morning I had a pleasant 32.5 km run. Did I say pleasant? I meant grueling. A run that long pretty much ruins the rest of the day. It exhausts you to a level that a sane distance run wouldn’t.
I had decided to use new shoes for this run. My previous pair are getting close to expiry, so it would probably be better if I used a fresh pair. And I knew the route we were doing, so there wouldn’t be any mud involved.
At least I thought I knew the route. I was mistaken. Going through Rainbow Valley we found the construction to reinforce the valley walls. To say there was a bit of mud would be an understatement.
I also tried a new type of energy gel. Previously I had used a PowerBar brand, but this time I used Clif Shots. They are slightly smaller, and I wanted to see if eating two would give me enough energy for the entire run. Lately I’ve been running low on fuel and the last 8km have been a slog. It was better this time, but they tasted bad and didn’t agree with my digestive system.
Experiments will continue until moral improves.

So, the Apple event was last Tuesday.
No new laptops, so I will continue holding off my purchase of a new one. Any day now….
However, new iPods are here. So I will get one. I just want to hear some reviews from other people before I totally commit. My biggest beef with the new ones, is that they look exactly like the old ones. The new features are just nominal upgrades: More memory; Brighter screen. Nothing I can really show off to my friends and make them jealous.
I’ll still get one.
There is another thought though. Maybe I should get the Nano? There is a package available for it that is made for runners. Unfortunately it seems to require Nike shoes. My feet don’t fit comfortably into Nike shoes, so it doesn’t look like an option for me. And I don’t know if it only works with Nanos, or will it work with regular iPods. Or with other shoes.
But it sounds so cool!

Yesterday, Theatre Alberta contacted me. It was my teacher from the acting classes I took in summer. She thought that I could go directly to the Acting II course, and could skip the class that is full. The teacher would know that I am not fully trained, but I could probably do it. That’s a nice compliment. And I took the bait.
So I’m going to be an actor now.
The bad part is that this means the class is on Tuesday instead of Monday. So that means I won’t be able to do Salsa lessons any more.
And that’s bad. Because I went yesterday again, and it was much better this time. I like the substitute teacher that has been teaching the class. There was also a very hot girl there that I sucked up the courage to ask to dance.
I didn’t embarrass myself.
I didn’t stun her with great dancing either. I’m also getting the impression that she might be showing up regularly. (That might be wishful thinking/imagination.) Just when I’m about to start missing classes. I could always show up for the latin dancing that takes place after the Salsa lessons.
Of course, I don’t know how tired acting lessons would make me.
This teacher will be teaching Salsa at another bar on Thursday. It won’t be within walking distance, but it might be a good way to get out and keep active.

I was thinking of taking an acting class. The Citadel theatre had one I was interested in taking. Unfortunately, I finally got around to signing up today and found that it was already full.
It’s my fault, really. It starts in one week, so I am very last minute. But a part of me didn’t really want to go to the class. I am already having trouble meeting my schedule, and a weekly class would have put a lot of pressure on my time management skills.

I tried to get a good amount of sleep last night. It would have been helped if two people hadn’t decided to argue on the street in front of my place about who could use the F-word the most. The joys of Whyte Avenue living.
It was a good run today. 29km. We attempted to do a negative split, so the trip back was four and a half minutes faster than the trip out. The conditions were good. Not too hot. Not too cold. Not too dry. I would say, not to wet, but it started raining, hard, as soon as the run started and didn’t end until, well, the run ended. Nice timing.
The rest of the day had gorgeous weather. Nice enough that I decided to tool around on the scooter for an hour. Which led to an interesting revelation. An hour of scooter riding and I didn’t cover more distance than I ran this morning. That means I was averaging less than 30 kph.
And I ran a lot of distance.
In other news, the Edmonton Journal broke down. They reduced their price and I’m subscribing again.

I’m getting tired of spending money. I haven’t actually been spending money on myself, but treating other people. But still, I have friends telling me to buy things that I don’t need, but they would like to use.
Today a co-worker suggested I get a Segway. I’m a runner and that seems to be the complete antithesis of that activity. (It’s a wheelchair for people who aren’t invalid.)
Another friend thinks I should buy an X-Box 360. I got an original X-Box due to peer pressure. (It came out on my birthday.) I don’t need the upgrade because there is only one game for it I’m interested in, and I have yet to finish the prequel which I’ve had for three or four years.
It was easier when I didn’t have excess money to my name. Then I knew I could just invest any excess cash in sensible RRSPs and no one bugged me.
But I do want to spend money on certain items. Apple is helping. They are going to be making a big announcement on Tuesday, which might be a new iPod. Or a new laptop. I need both.
Yes. I use the word “need” deliberately. I’m a programmer, so a laptop is actually something that I need. An iPod, because I am starting to get to the point that I need something to store large files onto.
Of course, my VCR has gotten vindictive recently. It has started to take the policy that if it can’t record on a tape, no one will. So whenever I eject a tape, it snips it in half. The quality of what it records isn’t anything to write home about either. So I should replace it with the latest in technology. Which would be a PVR.
And the rumor mills are also wondering if Apple might release one of those on Tuesday as well.
I also realize that I am getting absolutely no sympathy from anyone reading this.

I’ve been busy lately. I could say that it has gotten in the way of blogging, but it really hasn’t. But I’ve had two different people visit me recently. Each one of them I’ve tried to spoil rotten. I did my best to keep the constantly entertained to the point of exhaustion.
And I’m tired of it.
For a change I want to be spoiled. I want to do whatever I want, and let some one else takes care of my basic needs.
So I’ve come to my parents in the greater Calgary area, and it has started to happen.
Today we drove into the Kananaskis park. We went for a walk and then had a nice picnic near the Picklejar recreation area. The best part was that someone had started laying out rocks to build a dam across Mist creek. Being my grandfather’s grandson, that could not stand. So I spent an enjoyable two hours finding all the rocks I could to improve the dam. I got myself wet crossing the creek to pillage better rocks on the other side. Soon, the original dam was little more than a waterfall. It was great. I hope some more people come along and do their best to build on these works, but I fear a park ranger will instead tear it down.
Tomorrow I’m planning on catching up on some computer work I’ve been meaning to do.
Good times!

Let us suppose, for a moment, that Superman is real. There is a real nice Kryptonian flying around doing good deeds, saving lives, and helping old ladies across the street. He has all the powers and weaknesses of the comic book hero.
Now, in this scenario, what should be the legal status of Kryptonite? This is a green rock that only has one purpose, and that is to kill Superman, a man who 9 out of 10 of Metropoleans think is a good guy. He even seems to be on the side of the United States government.
And you have to admit, it would be suspicious if you saw a kilo of it sitting on someone’s desk. Why would he have it? There is only one reason.
But then it only affects one person.
Well, what if there was a rock out there that killed U.S. Presidents. (And I don’t mean like granite at a high velocity to the head. Stay on topic people.) Wouldn’t the government have a very vested interest in making sure Presidentite was kept safely away.
But what if there was a rock that killed Bob, and only Bob. Bob being a nice guy who lives down the street, an accountant who pays his taxes on time. Nothing really interesting about him, other than a huge allergy to Bobite. Would Bobite need to be controlled?
But back to that hunk of material sitting on someone’s desk. What if, instead of Kryptonite, it was plastique. An easily detonated explosive. Same story. Awfully suspicious to find it sitting on a desk.
But if we use that analogy, we are getting into NRA territory. The right to bear Kryptonite. Everyone has a right to defend themselves from Kryptonians. If owning Kryptonite is against the law, then only criminals will have Kryptonite! (Well, duh!)
I can see the U.S. Military stockpiling the green rock in case Superman suddenly becomes a threat. That’s just common sense. And maybe some research centers will be allowed to have it to study. That nice Mr. Lex Luthor says he wants to test its radioactive properties, so why shouldn’t we let him have some.
However, if the National Kryptonite Association (with its sister organization, the NRA) forms and starts demanding legalization of Kryptonite, then I can see things being awkward for Superman. I could easily see him immigrating to Canada, where there is no second amendment making him easy to kill.

Operation Foaming Horse could have gone better.
The litmus test was today. Last evening she went to Calgary to be with my parents. If she slept all day, then the mission would be accomplished. I called and checked, and while she was very tired, she did not sleep all day.
But I did a good job. On Friday morning I treated her to a Swizzlesticks haircut and then we went to Costco to pick up steaks. In the afternoon through to the evening we saw three plays, “Letters in Wartime”, “52 Pick-up”, and “Kind Hearts and Coronets”. After my sister went to bed, I snuck out and saw “Pajama Men”.
The next day, my sister counterattacked. She “claimed” she was sick and used that as an excuse to sleep. It was hard to argue with that. We did see “Mules” which I found very depressing for a supposed comedy. Due to the illness, we watched the two “American Werewolf” movies instead of doing other things.
Sunday she was feeling better, so I got to try and exhaust her again. We started slowly though, but went to the noon show of “The Overnight”. (Good play!) Then grocery shopping to get the final ingredients for a barbecue, that we then had. After, we saw “Get Off the Cross, Mary” which I wouldn’t really recommend. Then off to the Belke play, “The Raven and the Writing Desk.” To top off the evening, Karaoke!
On Monday I abandoned my sister while I went to work in the morning. I took the afternoon off. There were plans to see plays, but they mostly evaporated. We wandered the Fringe, and then hung out in Hawrelak park for a few hours. We went to dinner at Chianti’s. While my sister went to bed early, I went out to go for a run with a friend. That didn’t end well (see previous entry) and it resulted in me staying up later than I would have liked. That affected me for the rest of the trip. The missing of a couple of hours sleep is hard to make up with a tight schedule.
On Tuesday, energy levels had risen in my sister. I was tired but I refused to let her win. So after working in the morning, we went to see “Man 1, Bank 0”. Then we rushed off to an extravagant dinner with friends. After the dinner, salsa lessons at the Funky Buddha!That worked out well for me in my goals as I could get other people to dance with my sister and tire her out. (Of course, on my end, it is depressing to ask a girl to dance and, after she declines, to see her dancing with another girl five minutes later.) When we got back in the late evening, I made sure to doubly wilt her by starting to watch a movie.
Wednesday, I worked in the morning, and my sister slept. That’s probably where I lost the most points. It allowed her to rest up. She said that she didn’t have the energy to get out of bed and walking hurt. “Suck it up, buttercup!” We went and did a bit of shopping on Whyte Avenue; Wandered the Fringe; Checked out the hat store. We nearly saw a play; It was 45 minutes, but charged the maximum price, which implies a rip-off. So instead we finished the movie we started the previous day. Then I took her to the Sawmill restaurant to gorge herself. Hey, free salad bar with purchase of a prime rib! You try not leaving bloated. After, we had twenty minutes to kill before I needed to take her to her bus. She decided to try and embarrass me by going next door, to Diamonds Gentlemen’s Club. According to a quick poll of my friends, this makes my sister totally cool. However the joint wasn’t really happening at that early an hour. In the end, my sister was more embarrassed than me. Come on, I’ve been to Hedonism where I perfected the art of getting tired of looking at beautiful naked women.
And then I shoved my sister on a bus.
We did a lot, but apparently not enough. I will need to exhaust her better next time. And not be fooled with her pretending to be sick.

I was in my first street fight yesterday.
Well, more of a park fight…
I’m an amateur, so I really don’t know what to call it. I would like to stress my lack of experience in these sort of things. I don’t know if I conducted myself properly.
Basically, I went for a run with a friend yesterday evening. After over an hour of pounding pavement, we ended up at the top of Victoria hill and were resting in the gazebo there. It was a quarter to eleven, so it was dark out. But the gazebo is lit up quite well and we were near a major intersection.
Suddenly, an indian came up and asked where the smokes were. He was dressed mostly in black and had a scruff of facial hair. According to my friend, he smelled like pot. Let’s call him Black. We didn’t have anything for him. Heck, we had just been running. You want to carry as little as possible, and you certainly don’t want to have cigarettes.
Anyway, he started to take offense at us. Apparently we thought we were better than him because we had a place to live and he was homeless. (In this economy, you can only not have a job by choice. So my pity-meter for the homeless is at an all time low.) He was looking for a fight. His friend, a portly indian dressed in white and with a ball-cap, came up. Let’s call him White. It looked like he was trying to calm his friend down, but not very well.
We got up to leave. We didn’t want trouble. According to my friend, Black hit him in the back of the head at that time. So when Black tried to jump over the gazebo railing to get at us, my friend pushed him back. White was now no longer trying to calm his friend down.
They both ran around the gazebo and Black hit my friend in the face. His glasses went flying. My friend then TACKLED Black. They then started fighting on the ground. I have no doubt that my friend could beat up Black, no problem. Black was, after all, high, and probably not in the best of shape.
But White started kicking my friend while they were on the ground. I tried to stop him, and so White turned his attention to me. He threatened to stab me while reaching into the front of his jeans. Not the most pleasant of imagery. So I backed off. At no time did I see a weapon. When White went back to attacking my friend, we repeated that scene.
I figure that White wasn’t looking for a fight. But he had to support his friend’s stupid decisions. And that meant he couldn’t let a fair fight happen so they were trying to both beat him up.
Then the fight just stopped. They both got up and parted ways. I can’t remember the reason why. I figure that our side wasn’t looking for a fight, and when the indians (does that make us the cowboys?) stopped we didn’t pursue the matter. They walked away.
My friend was covered in the blood streaming down his face from where his glasses got knocked off. We went to his place and phoned the police. We gave a brief description of the assailants, and then waited until midnight for an actual officer to show up and take a report. While waiting we got ice on the wound. He seemed fairly upbeat, but that might have been the adrenaline talking.
My friend’s wife took him to the hospital to get stitches. I went home.
I ended up without a scratch on me. My friend had blood all over the side of his face. I feel I should have done more, but I’m not sure what the proper protocol is in these sorts of things. I didn’t want to escalate the situation, but I didn’t want two people beating up my friend.
The people I’ve told the story have varying opinions. My sister is wondering why I was in a park after dark. A co-worker wondered why two runners didn’t run away from the problem. Another thought the whole thing was surreal.
Ironically, those weren’t the only vagrants I had trouble with that evening. While leaving to go for the run, I found three people sitting in the stairwell, with backpacks, smoking. Initially I just told them smoking wasn’t allowed. After I had gotten to my car I realized it was obvious they didn’t belong. I went back and escorted them from the building.

On the way back from the airport last night my sister pointed out a flashing sign that was saying “Thank you”. Just sitting on the side of the road. I don’t know why (might have been troop related) but my sister thought it was very Canadian.
I asked her what it would say in America.
“Your tax dollars at work” next to a big road project that had been abandoned for a year.

Operation Foaming Horse is off to a poor start.
I raced home to try and see the play, but we didn’t make it. Probably five minutes late. They don’t let you in late, and that is a rule I support and I wish they would enforce more.
However we got up at an early hour and I’ve kept her going. She collapsed fifteen minutes ago, demanding a nap. I won’t let her rest for long. Then I’ll drag her off somewhere for more fun.

Today my sister will arrive from Miami. She is visiting for nearly a week before continuing on to my parents in Calgary. As usual, when I have guests visiting, my goal is to exhaust them.
My sister is actually the one that started this tradition. The first time she visited I kept her busy doing stuff. When she went home, she slept for an entire day. The same thing happened the next time.
So, now I just need a mission statement. After brainstorming with a co-worker we came up with some ideas. Operation: Pheidippides. Operation: Jenga (They are known for collapsing.)
In the end, we chose “Operation: Foaming Horse”. It gives nice imagery.
So I’ll pick up my sister and see if I can drag her to a fringe play starting at 10:00. Unfortunately, her flight is coming in half an hour late, so it will be tight. I hope she doesn’t need dinner.

In a seven day period I was at three barbecues.
The first was at a friend’s place last Monday. Then on Friday my company had another one. Then on Saturday I threw one myself. This was a part of my You-people-were-supposed-to-drink-all-my-beer-the-first-time party. I bought six more beers just in case I ran out, but in the end, I still have seven beers that are lingering in my fridge.
Unfortunately, alcohol wasn’t the problem. Food was. I had too much of it. Corn on the cob. Buffalo chicken wings. Marinated drumsticks. Hamburgers. It didn’t help that a Korean friend brought Bul-gal-bee as well. I had planned to do all the barbecuing myself, because I’m the host, I should be doing the work. But I wasn’t allowed near the fire. Other people were more insistent that they get to handle the duty. Fine, I’ll go back to making sure people are decently hydrated.
Of course there was a problem with that. A group was commandeering the fire and cooking the Bul-gal-bee. Every so often they brought some in to share with the people inside. I later found out that a lot of the meat was being held up in customs and wasn’t making it inside. Apparently Bul-gal-bee is better when eaten directly off the grill.
Still, there was a good turn out. Some groups that didn’t make the previous party finally showed up. So I’m going to call it a success as a party. It didn’t attain its goal, but I’ll decide to be happy with the result.

A few days ago I got an order from Amazon in. The prize book in that order was the latest in the Sword of Truth series by Goodkind, Terry.
Of course I have more of an inhalation process to reading than most people. So all 592 pages were done the next day. Needless to say, it is a good book. Heck, it is a good series. In the first book, my sister pointed out that everything seems to get worse and worse for Richard, the main character. I have to agree, the drama seems to have more tragedy than A Series of Unfortunate Events. The latest book continues this trend as properties of Richard that you have come to count on evaporate away.
But the past few book seem to have a theme behind them that is both interesting and creepy. In “Faith of the Fallen” it seemed to be a tirade against communism. That was the sixth book. The ninth book seemed to be not-so-subtlely mirroring the current Bush administration. This book, the tenth, actually had Richard going around advocating terrorism.
Political beliefs (or observations) aside, it was edge of your seat reading that I couldn’t put down.
In other news, I bought the complete Sherlock Holmes. I’m wondering if I will ever read it, or will it sit on the shelf looking classy.

Since I’ve paid off my mortgage I decided that I would buy a new laptop. A MacBook Pro looked like just the thing to sate my nerdity. But, then I heard that July was the worst month to buy a Mac. Because the WWDC happens in August, that is when new Macs will be announced. Probably at the Steve-note. My goal for major purchases these days is to not feel stupid. So I don’t want to buy anything that will be obsolete in a month.
But said Steve-note was today. No new Mac laptops were announced. So that leaves me with a dilemma. Another rumor has been out that since Intel released new chips that new Apple laptops would be arriving at the end of this month or the start of the next.
Peer pressure is mounting that I stop waiting and start spending my money and get a laptop. But that conflicts with my “Don’t feel stupid” policy. I should wait a month, but my current laptop is feeling old. (Don’t say that out loud. I don’t want it to hear.)

I went to the Heritage Days festival yesterday. A fine time to take a dose of other cultures. I went with a co-worker who is working in Canada temporarily so she can apply for a visa to return to the states. So, that’s an added bonus of culture.
We walked from Whyte avenue all the way to the park, which is about 4km. Add on the run on Wednesday and Thursday, and I was fairly exhausted for the Sunday morning run today.
But, let’s talk about the festival. It was nice. The Iberian-Canadian exhibit had the best performance with the martial-arts dancers. The song they sang got stuck in my head for awhile after. Usually I just go for the food and try to avoid the culture, but I got more of it this time.
The thing is fairly well organized, but it could be better. One idea I had was instead of having all the pavilions in a semi-line, they should instead be in the form of a map of the world. However, I can also think of problems with that. For instance, popular exhibits like France would be totally dwarfed by other countries like India. (Not to say that India isn’t popular, but I recall long lines for the French exhibits.) That could probably be solved by stylizing the map. But the biggest problem is that countries that neighbor each other frequently don’t get along. Ethiopia would be next to Eritrea. China next to Taiwan. Serbia next to Croatia. Israeli vs. Arab. And most importantly, France next to Italy.

For me, Earl’s is a lot like Sony.
When you buy a Sony product, you aren’t necessarily getting a better product. You will probably get a fine piece of electronics, but you are paying extra for the advertising.
With Earl’s, the food is quite a bit overpriced. They are somewhat more subtle with their advertising though. I don’t recall ever seeing a commercial for them. Their advertising is via gorgeous waitresses. They only seem to hire the drop-dead beautiful. (Unless you accidentally get the table being served by the owner’s daughter.) But the food isn’t any better, and the girls want nothing to do with you after you’ve given them their tip.
Other restaurants have a more economical bait-and-switch approach. They hire one drop-dead beautiful woman, then have her work as the hostess. So when you go to the restaurant, the first thing you see is this beauty, but then when you sit down, you find yourself interacting with something that may have crawled out of the sewer.
I suppose what is most annoying is that as a man I will fall for it every time.

Today, at work, I had to take a short educational course. It was compliance training.
Today’s course was on how not to give bribes to foreign government officials. Most of it seemed obvious.
At the end though, I noticed that they had not once said anything about bribing local (non-foreign) government officials.

I haven’t updated in awhile. And for that I apologize. I’ve been busy.
As previously noted, I had a mortgage-burning party. Actually, no, it hasn’t been previously noted. But in any case, it happened last Saturday.
I would like to think it was a successful party. I had about thirteen people show up. There were some demographics that didn’t bother to show up, but I easily met quorum. It split into two parties. One was out on the balcony playing the guitar and singing. The other was inside with the food and drinks and discussing meaty subjects.
However it looks like I’ll need to throw another party soon. A You-people-were-supposed-to-drink-all-my-beer-the-first-time party. (It will probably be a barbecue.) That would allow me some space in my fridge which is currently overflowing with a beverage I don’t like to drink. I mean, the bottle of vodka wasn’t even opened.
Well, better luck next time.

Well, my friend is visiting.
My goal to totally exhaust him is going poorly. Mainly because he came pre-exhausted. (I blame his children.) No challenge there. I’m letting him sleep in, and hopefully that will give him some energy reserves that I can spend the rest of the day depleting.
I’ve got a party this evening. I’ll drag him around town getting ready for it. There is also the “Taste of Edmonton” going on, but I’m thinking of saving that for tomorrow. I’ll try and replace it with a Whyte Avenue wander. That will probably involve exercise, so that should be good to tucker him out.
Yes. My plan is coming together.

Last week I did something I had never done before, but I should have a long time ago.
I saw “Hamlet”. It’s actually hard to avoid the play in this day and age. But now I can finally make sense of the play “Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead”. I’ve seen it several times, but I couldn’t help but feel some of it was lost on me. (I’m not sure but I think the performance of Hamlet I saw included a few extras to link it more closely with the “… are Dead” play.) Now I can understand all the Hamlet jokes people tell. (Not that there are a lot of them.)
I suppose my timing on seeing it was good, because this weekend I also took an acting course for the first time. I’ve been hip deep in improv courses, but I really have just been winging it when it comes to acting. I never even took it in high school.
I’m not sure how much I got from the course. The first part seemed to focus on improvising. I’d like to think I have that mostly down. Then the rest was more scripted. We were each given a part in a small section of some plays. Then we were to perform those parts. But the teacher never actually taught us how to perform. All I got was how to breath like the character, or walk like the character, or how to figure out the motivations of the character. Now I suppose those are all a good foundation for acting like the character, but I’m wondering if I am missing something. I never feel comfortable trying to portray strong emotions that I’m not familiar with. I’m not a very emotional person. No one has told me how to pretend plausibly that I am feeling a certain way.
I’m thinking of taking a season long course and hope that it gives me a better idea.

Okay, it was a learning experience for what should be an obvious lesson. I knew it was probably a dumb idea, but I still thought it could be done.
Basically, I thought I could buy a slurpee and then scooter a few blocks. I should point out that my scooter doesn’t have a cup holder. (Why would it?) It was a short distance. It was risky, but as long as I was careful, why couldn’t I?
Initial tests of holding it in one hand and using the right hand for acceleration and braking seemed to work. Then I got more confident and tried putting it on the seat between my legs. That was the mistake. As soon as I braked, even gently, it fell down to the floor. The lid did not stay on.
So I’ve traded the price of a slurpee for a learning experience and a sticky scooter. But I think I lost the lesson. I now think I know what to do, so we will be repeating this fiasco at some time in the future.

A thought occurred to me.
In the past, hobbies lasted for the lifetime of the participant. You could start a hobby, and have a reasonable chance of amusing yourself with it for the rest of your life. The skills you developed at the start would last. If you played a sport, age would catch up with you, but you could still have fun playing. More sedate hobbies, like stamp collecting wouldn’t change at all.
These days, the hobby of video games breaks that mold.
Video games are spurious. The fun I have had with old games will never come again. The skills and strategies I gained to play “Uncharted Waters” will wither and die.
I could try the game again because I did have fun playing it in the past, but I also finished it. And now there are more advanced games that I should try. It’s a never ending battle to get a hit from the latest game. Unfortunately I tend to look back. I’ve been working to play games that have been gone for decades, simply because I never finished them the first time around. I’ve already finished Ultima 1 to 3, and someday Ultima 4 will fall before me.
But I can’t dwell in the past forever. I have a literal pile of old computers lurking in my closet; A Mac Performa 6200, and a Mac Plus that will never be used again. But I am now going through the process of taking them to my car for a trip to the Eco station. A part of me is dying, but I have to face facts. I will probably never enjoy “Dark Castle” on it again. (Although I hear you can get it for cell phones now.) I won’t have an epic battle in “Reach for the Stars”. All I will have is the memories.

Plants are stupid.
I don’t mean in a they-won’t-get-into-Harvard kind of way, but just in a self-preservation way. I have a poinsettia that I have been growing for awhile. I enjoy whenever it makes a new branch and starts growing in a different direction. But this plant seems to be determined to grow in the stupidest ways. Most often it is a case of reach exceeding grasp. It will grow a branch out in a direction and then not try and support the branch so that it bends under its own weight. Or it just breaks off. Heck, I have one brach that has been going in a downward trend for some time, and has almost run out of room to go down.
However, they are good for the economy.
Last week, after the Whyte Avenue parade, there was a lady handing out little saplings so that people could plant a tree. It was nice. But I don’t have a yard. So I needed to buy a pot to put the sprout in. But you also need dirt. Dirt does not come in small bags. They come in large 25 liter bags. You can not get a small bag unless you want very expensive dirt. So I went the cheapest way, which involved a lot of dirt I do not need. To support a small fir tree that will probably die in a few weeks.
Healthy economy though.

I saw the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie yesterday. Although, it could more truly be said I saw it early this morning. The movie didn’t start until 11:24, and I didn’t get out until 2:00 in the morning. Thank god for the overpriced popcorn and coke. Which for me was dinner and a vital source of caffeine.
It has been the best summer movie so far. After the disappointment of X-Men: The Last Stand and the love/hate relationship with Superman Returns it was nice to see a movie that was entirely good. The only complaints I could have is a little too much CGI (suspension of disbelief tends to shut down when CGI stunts happen) and a very slight pacing problem. But those are minor quibbles. If you see only one summer movie, this seems to be the one to see.
Sequels, as a rule of thumb, tend to be poor in comparison. I think that is the nature of the beast though. If you make the sequel at the same time as the original, you can have them flow together. But usually the sequel is only made after the movie execs see the original is a hit. So they feel disjointed. Often a number of hard coincidences are needed to get the characters to interact with each other again. This movie fell victim to that, but they did their best to get people who don’t necessarily like each other to work together again.
What they did do quite well is really make it a sequel right. You do that by taking elements from the first movie (usually minor ones if the sequel wasn’t made at the same time) and make them far more of a plot hook in the next. The other way is to not introduce too many new characters, and use as many from the first movie as possible. Pirates did that in spades. Almost every character from the first is in the second. Even ones that don’t make sense were forced in. Mostly, I suspect, because they were good comic relief.
My final piece of advice. The credits last ten minutes. There is a brief ten second scene waiting for you at the end. You will feel no sense of loss if you miss it, and you could probably predict that that was what happened. So if you don’t want to wait through all those names, don’t feel too bad. But at least you know it is there.

Yesterday there was a Theatresports show that I got to be in. For me it was last minute as I only found out about it on Tuesday. Which was a problem because I already had plans for Friday. But I was able to shuffle the plans a bit and I could do both. I wasn’t even sure if I should show up. It has been four weeks since I last did any form of improv, so I was rusty. I did my best to prepare by reading the comments given to me during the last few improv classes I had attended.
Fortunately, I was only on for about twenty minutes. I didn’t do horribly. But I didn’t do great. I forgot all of the comments that had been given to me. Mostly that I am controlling. I guess when I am stressed, I start pushing a story, and everybody else better come along for the ride. This is a bad thing. I have to be more trusting. It really hit me in the speaking-in-one-voice part where I had an idea for a story, and so I wasn’t listening to what word Jonathan was starting to say.
I should have stayed for the notes after the show, and I regret that, but I had to go rushing off.