It’s been bugging me since it happened. I should have mentioned it yesterday, but I think I just wanted to get a journal entry out and didn’t spend the time to make it a quality product.
I was the one driving to and from the movie, with Peter as the passenger. I’m not used to having someone else in the car, so I tend to get distracted when I’m talking to them. The car goes into auto-pilot and I nearly ran a red light. I didn’t even notice that there was a light there, and I would have cruised right past it if Peter hadn’t pointed it out. I can think of a few times when things like this have happened. Having a passenger distracts me making me a poor driver. It’s something I have to work on.
Thank god I don’t have a cell phone.

A large chunk of today was taken up with the key fob reset. For five and a half hours I was in the lobby getting people’s key fobs into the system again. Boring. I did a bit of work on my laptop during lulls, but it wasn’t very productive.
In the evening I went to see “Constantine” with Peter, the new guy in the D&D game. Good movie. A lot of shades of “The Omen” in it. A bit of a twist near the end. I’d say more about it, but that would spoil the movie for others. After we went to a bar on Whyte and talked. I smell like a smokestack now.
Tomorrow I run, and I have more people coming to finish up the work on the carpet. Hope it goes well.

I’ve been feeling proud of myself. For about a week and a half I’ve been updating this journal every day. But I’ve missed yesterday, Friday, because the D&D game ran late. Speaking of which, it was a good game. I’m glad I got let out of work early for the long weekend, because I really needed the time to prepare. There was a long battle with an invading military corp. So high level character needed to be made.
My rug has been steam cleaned. It looks very nice and I really feel bad if I need to walk on it. So I’ve been completely avoiding that, literally jumping from the kitchen tiles to the other rooms. I will need to bite the bullet and do it eventually. I need to move the furniture back. And on Sunday afternoon they should be doing the tiles in front of the fireplace. Definitely don’t want workers walking on it willy-nilly.
Tomorrow I will be in the front lobby of the condo letting people reset their key fobs in the great key fob reset. My shift is for five hours. I expect it to be slow, so I’m going to take the laptop and see if I can get some programming done.

I got a call at work today. The steam cleaning of my carpets has been postponed. Apparently there was a major water main break around downtown today. That took priority over my cleaning. So I have to live with a big screen TV facing the bookcase in my computer room.
You could almost see this coming.
I went to Rona and got the one tile that I think will match my floor. I even told Doug to go ahead and use it. When I got home I found that it is close, but not exact. So if I ever need to replace my tiles, I’ll have to find something else. But for my purposes it should work.
Now, even though I’m feeling very tired, I have to create a somewhat complicated dinner (because I need to use the ingredients before they expire on me.) Then I have to make some challenges for my players for tomorrow’s D&D game.
And I’m feeling tired.

Okay we have a plan B.
The steam cleaning is happening tomorrow. So I’ve moved all the furniture out of my living room. Sofa, big screen TV, bookshelf. Everything except two speakers that are wired into the wall, but can be moved around easily. That was a project! He better come tomorrow, or else I’m stuck with extra furniture in every room. And a man can’t live like this.
The plan B in question is to acknowledge that the carpet isn’t going to reach, so instead we will place tiles around the fireplace. Should look nice. The problem is that they should match the tiles in my kitchen, on the other side of the carpet from the fireplace. They don’t have to be exact, but they need to be close. So I left work early to go to Rona and get some tile samples. They don’t have any books of tiles and instead recommend you buy the ones you think are close and then return them the next day.
I picked up five different tiles (heavy buggers) and brought them home. None of them are an exact match, but there is one that looks nearly right if it was darker. Anyway, I’ve taken pictures of the entire affair, and I’ll go back to Rona tomorrow and see if I can get a better match. Then I should be able to give Doug the go.
Hopefully I can get this done by Friday. Because on Saturday the key fob that he is using will be disabled with the big key fob reset going on in the building.
And I still need to prepare a D&D game for Friday.
In other news, I got a 30% off coupon for the Running Room today because I keep leading a group on Wednesdays. Too bad I just bought shoes, but it is good for the entire year. I’m sure I’ll need new shoes before then.
Today all the Running Room managers from across Canada and the US were in Edmonton. So I got to lead a bunch of them around downtown Edmonton. Nice bunch.

Apparently the carpet has shrunk since it got soaked. So it doesn’t quite reach the walls anymore. At least without some severe stretching.
On to plan B!
I have no idea what plan B is. Looking forward to what Doug has to say.

I got a call today at work from Doug, the person in charge of repairs, saying that everything was done, and that the carpet cleaner would call soon. Much to my surprise, when I got home, nothing had changed. I phoned Doug and explained the problem. Half an hour later, some guys showed up to do the repairs. I’d like to think that was great service, but they were just running late and they had finally arrived.
Slightly inconvenient, because I was just about to go downstairs to do some running on the treadmill. I have only myself to blame. I was fooling around on the computer trying to avoid getting exercise. Now I actually have to avoid it, because I want to make sure they are doing a good job. They’ve left for half an hour now to wait for some contact cement to dry, so I thought I would do an update in the meantime.

Well, one tradition is back on line.
After the improv class I picked up a See magazine to figure out if there are any events tonight that I am missing. On the drive home I realized I was hungry. (See the aforementioned two danish dinner.) At the time I was passing the “Funky Pickle”; Voted best pizza in Edmonton. What, the hey. Let’s have a slice and read the See magazine. So I go around the block and park next to Chianti’s.
To my surprise, the door to Chianti’s is open. Last week at this time it was locked. So I go in and have a nice Italian dinner and glare at the happy couples. It was Valentine’s day, so all the specials were cancelled. Since I didn’t have to confine myself to the “Pasta Frenzy” menu I got the Pollo alla Parmigiana. I love that dish and I have it so rarely. The waitress was cute/nice and working on Valentine’s day so I gave her a big tip.
Now that I’m home, I’ve read the See magazine. Doesn’t seem like there was anything happening tonight. Of course if I had been on the ball I could have seen “An Omni-Sexual Adventure” presented by Sex Positive Innovations on Saturday.

A number of irregular traditions are falling apart today.
I have, in the past, made it a habit of going to Chianti’s on Valentine’s Day. Usually I glare at the happy couples. I was going to go again today, because I go on Mondays anyway. However, I couldn’t get a reservation. So instead of a nice Italian dinner that might be romantic if I weren’t eating alone, I had two danishes for supper.
The other tradition was to try going to a singles party. Some bar usually hosts an event for single people to feel proud of the aloneness, and hopefully hook up with some other lonely person. They usually fall flat for me. I don’t do well in bar atmospheres and wind up going home more depressed than when I arrived. I don’t even know which bar is going to have a single event tonight. This year though, I have an improv class to go to. I’m actually surprised it hasn’t been cancelled. I would have thought the teacher would have something more productive to do.

The run this morning was great. Good running weather, only -2 degrees, the footing was good (especially compared to last week) and the rebellion went off acceptably. The map at the front of the store today showed the 23km route as taking us through downtown and offering spectacular views of the river valley. However, the person in charge of the marathon clinic wanted people to do the god-d@3n winter route. The route that offers no spectacular views and I am totally sick of. Her reasoning was that it was too easy to get lost with the other route. So, planting the seeds of rebellion, I successfully got the run changed to the downtown route while her back was turned. We did get a bit lost, but nothing too serious.
She was upset when we met up with her at brunch, but I feel no guilt. Variety is the spice of life.
During the brunch I noticed a girl sitting alone reading a Piers Anthony Xanth novel. I haven’t read a Xanth novel in over a decade (I found them targeted for a younger audience than I was), but I was still familiar with the series. So I spent half an hour sucking up the courage to approach and talk to her. I eventually did, so I don’t have to feel bad about missed opportunities. I just talked briefly about the series. I have no idea what her name is, but I still look at this as an accomplishment. I talked to a girl I didn’t know!
I talked to my sister today. She was feeling depressed over having one night at the bar which was like every night at the bar for me. I cheered her up. It always helps someone’s mood to see that there is someone more pathetic than they are.

My condo is a mess and I blame the back alley. Let me elaborate
Last year I purchased a nice deck chair. Probably spent too much on it, but it was nice to use to sun myself with. Now that winter is here (has been for awhile) I brought it indoors with the intention of putting it into my storage locker. Up until an hour ago it was still taking up the lion’s share of the space in my computer room. It was surprising how used to it I got. Even with it gone now, it feels weird not to avoid it while migrating to the computer.
The reason it took me so long to put it into my storage locker is that the locker is only a cage within the parking garage. Because the back alley, that the garage opens onto, is not paved, it is incredibly dusty down there. I could not justify putting an expensive deck chair down there.
So today I finally got around to buying a plastic tarp. I spent about two to three hours trying to get the tarp wrapped around the inside of the locker. Now that I have protection against the dust, I’ve taken the chair down.
With the elephant in the corner gone, I can now focus on some of the more achievable mountains of insurrection in the war against mess.

The sushi I ate yesterday might have been a bit off. Or else it had seafood that doesn’t agree with me (e.g. shrimp). Either way I had an upset stomach in the middle of the night. I like it when this happens because then my dreams become a lot more interesting. In my younger days I would have gotten nightmares, but now that I’m older, they just become ones with good story-lines.
I wish I could remember dreams better. It seems that the harder you try to hold on to them, the more they slip away. The dream I had seemed to be a combination of “Knights of the Dinner Table” and Halo (there was a lot of running around and killing things) but also a B movie with a Titanic budget (I forget why the legion of women warriors was involved, but I wasn’t complaining when they came to the rescue.) There were two parts, set a hundred years apart, when threats long thought passed were released unto the world. It had everything! If it was a movie, I would happily pay to go see it.
When the dream was over I tried to run it through my head to keep it. But even though you can’t imagine forgetting something that exciting, it is amazing how quickly it just vanishes from your mind. All that I’m left with are a few brief images and the feeling of loss. What was that thing pinned to the ground through the stomach in an alien machine. I do remember that releasing it was a bad thing. I think it was the same being whose army was destroyed by the protagonists running around with shotguns.

The work continues. The wall looks, well pretty much the same, but there is more spackle and he brought in some buckets of stuff. I’ve been told they will be done the wall tomorrow, and then I just have to wait for carpet guy. My fear on that count is due to a rumor I’ve heard. The flash flood that hit Edmonton back in summer caused a lot of flooding, and only now are they getting around to some of the repairs. So carpet people can’t be had for love or money.
Guess we’ll see.
Improv class was easy today. We had constructive criticism for the first hour and a half. I need to forget about being a guy who watches Improv, and start being a guy who does Improv. Commit to the scene and don’t smirk, or check with the audience, when I say something funny. I give good offers, but I seem to block myself immediately after giving them.
The last hour was the tap-out game, as perfected by “The Crumbs” of Winnipeg. I think it went very well, and I did some good improvising. Although we never seemed to let any scene last for very long.

I ran on the treadmill yesterday. Right after I bought new running shoes. The advantage of the treadmill is that it is consistent. I can set a high speed and I have to keep up with it. And it’s easy to compare to other runs. The thing to remember is that a treadmill isn’t the real world. When you are outside pounding pavement there is a different feeling, and it is harder. But this treadmill is letting me work on speed, and I’m running on a third day of the week.
So when I did the usual Wednesday run today, it felt good. I think I dragged my group at a higher speed than usual. And afterward, I still felt energetic.
On another note, my constant harassment of the people of Antrim construction has payed off. Today, someone actually came in to repair the flood damage. Three months after the fact. So far all that has happened is that the drywall has been replaced, the expanded moldings have been removed and new ones installed, and the hole in the floor is filled in. Still to come is painting the drywall, installing the carpet underlay and a steam cleaning of the carpet. Plus fixing the damage to the molding around the door that wasn’t there yesterday. I was told everything would be done today, so a little disappointment in an otherwise happy occurrence. Since they effectively have stolen my extra keys, I’m assuming they will come back.

Today I was out of it. I’m still exhausted from the high energy schedule I’ve given myself. So I had an impossible time concentrating on work. I’ll admit I wasn’t very productive. The annoying part is that about half an hour before leaving I started to wake up and was actually making progress. I would have stayed longer, but there is that schedule I’ve given myself.
I got home, and didn’t get myself organized enough to get a dinner. So I decided to go to Chianti after my improv class. I had to miss the first half of the class because I’m on the condo board and it was meeting today. Those meetings take forever, and I blame the fact that we have a lawyer leading them and he wants to do everything by the book. Protect us from liability.
Anyway I did the bit of the class that I could get to, then drove to Chianti. The place was closed. Hardly surprising. It was a quarter to ten. So I came home. Instead of scrounging up something to eat, I instead write in my journal.
I’m feeling quite alert right now.

I’m really exhausted lately. I’m firing on all cylinders and it is leaving me an empty shell. As you’ve probably noticed, I’m barely updating this journal. I’ve got those two improv classes a week, wednesday running, and friday gaming. And the D&D game seems to be making me stay up late to try and get everything ready. These high-level campaigns take a lot of work. So the weekends seem to be taken up with me doing nothing productive, and my place is becoming more and more of a mess because I don’t have time/energy to clean up properly.
I need a day off.
Last week I finally got the details of my mortgage payments from BMO. I only have about $27,000 left to go.
I ran 19km today in horrible traction. I need to buy new runners, and I’ll try and fit that in on monday.
I volunteered for the play “Speaking in tongues” It was good, but it needed an ending. Nothing seems to have one these days.

Since I’m not going to Europe this year (if ever) I decided to sign up again for another Jamaican vacation in November. I put a deposit down for the same trip as last year. If I signed up now it was $100 cheaper than if I waited. Which would have also been a good idea, because this is my RRSP month. All excess funds go towards as much RRSP as I can manage.

Yesterday was the Rapid Fire Theatre Annual General Meeting. There is a lot of bureaucratic stuff, but because we are dealing with theatre folk, it is always entertaining. There seems to be a race to see who gets to forward a motion. But the highlight of this meeting was that it was at Gateway Rec Centre. So after the meeting there was bowling followed by Lazer Tag.
I got to shoot my improv teacher.

In other news, I’m having a few financial concerns pop up. In my mad rush to kill my mortgage, I’ve been neglecting my RRSPs. So I’m going to try to do it at the last minute once again. So saving as much money as possible is becoming a concern. If I can make it to February 6th without making major purchases, I’ll be good. Why? Because after that day, my credit card purchases fall to the next billing cycle, and it will be a concern in March. After RRSP season.
That shouldn’t be too hard?
Well, right on schedule, my runners are getting expired. A good pair of runners are good for 500km, and with the long runs adding up, I’m starting to feel them wearing out. So I need to buy new ones. But there are two long runs between now and February 6th. I don’t want to get injured by running in bad shoes.
Also, the Jamaican vacation I took last November is having a deal. If I put a deposit down, it will be slightly cheaper for this year. Do I want to go again? I’m apparently not going to Europe, so I do need to take a vacation. But I have only until February 1st to decide. And the deposit is in US funds, so the exchange rate is getting worse every day.
Speaking of mortgages, I finally contacted the BMO ombudsman. I think things are starting up again, and I should get a statement sometime next week.

Shades of Halo 2.
I’ve been reading the “Sword of Truth” series by Terry Goodkind. Very good! The latest book, Chainfire, just came out and it’s been enthralling. However, the ending was disappointing. Total cliffhanger! They’ve just figured out what they need to do, and they’re about to go do it. Story ends. Wait for the next installment.
Didn’t I just run through that with Halo 2?

The thing I’m learning from improv classes is that I’m terrible at it. After most classes I feel that there is so much I’m doing wrong. I think too much. I need to get more into character. Well there was another class tonight and we did the exercise that almost gave me nightmares last time I did it: Office party in gibberish. The thing about that game is that we have to act like we’re at a party. I suck at parties. Still, I think it was better this time. I need to do better to commit to a character.
The teacher did say it is good to know you aren’t perfect, because then you have things to improve. If you are perfect, you have nothing to work on.
The next Thursday class we will be doing a high school soap opera. To prepare, we came up with characters tonight. Now we have an entire week to develop these characters and then play them next week.
Me? I’m the captain of the football team, and dating the head cheerleader. Erik has never watched an organized sports game in his life, so this will be a bit of a stretch to work on. I do know that I have to exude confidence. I’m actually looking forward to it.

So yesterday I said I was tired. I got into work this morning and still felt exhausted. So I planned to go to bed early tonight. Well, as you can see from the posting time, that didn’t quite happen.
While walking home last night I saw that the moon was quite bright, nearly full. I couldn’t see any stars because a haze had apparently settled over everything. So at work today I commented on that to Wayne, who is an astronomy buff. He was looking for a night to use his telescope. He checked the weather report and saw that it would be clear tonight. Do I want to go and look at stars and planets this evening?
How can I say no to that?
So, after the improv class (I need to stop thinking so much) I drove off to Wayne’s and looked through his telescope. There really isn’t that much to see. Most stars when seen through a telescope are just brighter pinpoints of light. Often you will see that they are actually two stars orbited each other, but that just makes two pinpoints of light.
The orion nebula was very faint, but I could see it. Saturn was amazing. I could see the shadows of the mountains on the moon. There weren’t many of those because the moon is practically full.
The things that struck me the most was the lack of color. In all the photographs of stellar objects, they are a rainbow of colors. But when seen through a telescope, it is all white or black. Wayne says that is because the low light receptors in our eyes can’t see color.
Still, well worth the trip. Now I really have to go to sleep.

Once again the weekly Starbucks update.
Once again my life isn’t that interesting.
I read in the paper today about diaries. Women, by far, are the most likely to keep one. The second point was that diary writers are usually depressed. Either depressed people are more likely to write, or writing makes you depressed. They weren’t sure.
I know I am usually depressed. I’m tempted to say that writing this journal contributes to that. When I go and reflect on the recent events of the day, which happens when I write, it usually hammers home a self assessment of my life. Usually I come up wanting.
Canticle also writes, and he always seems reasonably happy to me. Even when he’s upset about something, I secretly think that he is happy to have something to rant against. But, his most frequent postings are not about what’s happening in his life in minute details. Instead it is an opinion column sans editor. Quite a bit different from a diary.
I’ve set myself a grueling schedule. Mondays and Thursdays are Improv classes. Wednesdays has the evening runs. Fridays play host to a game night. Tuesdays then become evenings to try and catch up on chores. So weekends I am really tired, and I find myself wasting time watching TV that I’m not really enjoying. (Transformers Energon is nothing like the original Transformers.)
The weather here is warm. It was one above during today’s morning run, so I could go in shorts. Everyone else pointed and laughed (figuratively, with a dash of literally, speaking), but I was comfortable. And it is easier to run in shorts. Less clothing to lug around on the only part of the body really moving.
I made myself a new dish for dinner. Too much caramelized onions, but still good.
There was a D&D game on Friday. No deaths. But I did get to see my “good” players murder someone begging for their life. The slow path of corruption begins.
So, I now know that there is no Eurotrip for this year. I’ve got to make my own vacation plans. I’m tempted to repeat the Jamaican trip. I suppose I could go to Europe on my own, but that just doesn’t sound like the best of ideas.

He’s bought a house. No mention of the vacation.

On Tuesday, during my late drive to work I listened to the start of “The Current” on CBC radio. They were going to be talking about web logs, including what to do if your mother starts reading it. I didn’t get to hear that part as I arrived at work and no longer had access to the radio.
Today I checked the CBC website and found that they still had a copy of that episode and I could listen to it. They even gave a text summary of what they were talking about in quite good detail. I listened to the mothers vs. blogs part and found that it was pretty much what I had read from the summary. Almost word for word.
During this listen, the senior programmer wandered by and overheard. Being pretty bad at lying I admitted to having a web log. He has threatened to search for it. I’m not that worried, as I can’t figure out how to search for a blog. If I didn’t know the address of mine, I couldn’t even find it. It’s not indexed by Google. There are no keywords that would leap out at me. My name isn’t very unique.
A google for myself, and I’m the eleventh entry. And that’s for stuff I did nine years ago that someone else is referencing.

Today is a special day. This is the deadline for to decide if we’re doing a European vacation. After I post this, I’m checking his journal to see what his decision is. I’m not expecting much. He’s buying a house. He complains about how expensive his university courses and books are. He has trouble getting vacation time organized around a pricey dental visit. He’s getting married (aka Clinically dead).
Nope, not looking good.

What a busy day.
The guy for the flood damage came and we went over what needs to be done. It looks pretty straightforward. He should have people in next week to do the actual work. Despite leaving an hour later for work, because of the meeting, I was only 45 minutes late. I might have to do this regularly if it cuts my commute so much.
The bug I was lamenting yesterday is gone, but I’m not proud of it. I just noticed it went away when I enforced a certain condition. I’m not 100% sure why, and I don’t think I ever will be, but it’s good enough. Ship it! For the record, I don’t like what I did, but I’m dealing with a third-party’s code, and that is a can of worms I don’t want to get into.
I’ve decided to try changing from grocery shopping at Safeway to grocery shopping at Save-on-foods. I keep hearing good things about Save-on, so why not. After work, I did a quick stop off for a few small things at Superstore (they have cheap prices, but lower quality). Then I went to Save-on to get the real groceries that I need. It wasn’t very satisfying. Their meat selection wasn’t very big. A lot of my complaints have more to do with trouble trying to find things that I can find in a more familiar store. When I got home I immediately realized I had forgotten a head of lettuce which I’ve been needing quite badly. Why I left it off my grocery list, I don’t know. So, after 9:00 I went to Safeway and got the lettuce, and picked up a hunk of meat I needed. Summary: I visited three separate grocery stores this evening. And it wasn’t even a cheap tuesday.
I’ve decided to upgrade my running training. I want to get in some speed work, and I figured if I do it on the treadmill, it won’t be such a commitment to get out and do it. I can do a certain pace and keep it up, and I don’t have to worry about getting dressed for the weather. I can also keep them short. Since I can do all this, I should be able to run more often. I’m going to try and do it on any day that I don’t have another commitment. That kills more days than you would think, what with improv classes and D&D. But today I had no commitment, so it was a running day, which added more to my workload. But I must say, I do feel better. I think I’m on an endorphin rush. There was also a cute girl in the exercise room. Nice to know that I live in the same building as good looking women. However, I’m pretty sure she has a boyfriend.
On a final note, the lead programmer that I am under said something in the parking lot to me today. When he assigns me bugs, I make sure to fix them.
I’ve been feeling good over that compliment all evening.

Work is frustrating right now. I’ve got a bug that I’m not sure how it is happening. It’s hard to debug and I’m running low on options. Basically, it is hard to concentrate when there are too many variables.
On a brighter note, I signed up for a level 2 improv course that I just got back from. As usual, I know a lot of people in it. I’ve never had a course taught by Bill Minsky, but he’s been good so far. He sticks out the most in my mind as the guy who made his own Spider-Man movie. Complete with him swinging from a rope from a tall building in Edmonton, sans special effects.
Tomorrow the guy should be coming to go over the work that is going to happen to fix the flood damage. Hope it goes well.

Whenever I go out to Starbucks for a hot chocolate, I always seem to end up writing into my journal. I really don’t have anything interesting to report, except for the drama going on right now. There is a (presumably) drunk indian that they are trying to get out. When I came in, she was huddled kneeling by the door and not leaving, despite the man waiting for her to. After awhile she wandered into the back, and they keep trying to get rid of her. Interestingly there is a police car parked outside (with the hazard lights blinking), but I don’t think the man involved with this show is a policeman. Actually the cop car looks empty.
I wonder if they have drunk indians in Miami?
I’ve been lazy this weekend. No, wait, I don’t know. I played games on Friday. I didn’t go out on a Sunday run, but I did go onto the treadmill twice. I think I’ve figured that thing out. I can’t do long distance runs on it, but if I keep it to 20-30 minutes, it doesn’t completely bore me out of my skull. So if I really push the speed and incline, knowing that it isn’t a long run, I can get a good workout.
Ah, police are now escorting Ms. Drunk-Indian out. Looks like she’s going to the police car.
I think I’ve focused on a problem I’m having. Weekends haven’t been relaxing for me lately. And I think that is because I’m working on a particular D&D problem that, when you get down to it, is just work. I haven’t played a video or computer game in awhile. I need to start focusing on goofing off, and stop working on D&D.

So for Friday lunch today we went to East Side Mario’s. I had an all-you-can-eat pasta, but I was unhappy with it. And I mean REALLY unhappy. In every other restaurant I’ve been to, the pasta and sauce can be changed between servings. I’ve come to assume this. But not in East Side Mario’s. Whatever you first choose is what you are stuck with for the rest of the meal. If I had been told while I was ordering, I wouldn’t have minded, as I could change the order. But after the first serving was eaten, I wasn’t allowed to change for the second.
Of course, I complained to the server and then to the manager. The manager kept saying it was policy and wouldn’t try to make things better. I have no idea why she was so stubborn. I wasn’t trying to cheat the restaurant, and it can’t be that expensive to change the pasta. It was a lunch special for god’s sake! Other people are ordering all kinds of pasta. So I’ve phoned the company that owns the place, but haven’t heard from them yet. The bill even came with a loaded gun, uh, sorry, “Patron comment card”.
So my experience with East Side Mario’s: Customer satisfaction is abysmally low. I’m never going back, and I don’t think anyone else should either.
Now why the irony in the title of this entry?
We went to Best Buy afterwards and horribly abused their customer service policy.
Future Shop had a sale on a computer mouse. Normally it is $60, but their flyer claimed it was normally $20, and on sale for $15. Obviously an error, they must have meant a different mouse. If we had gone to Future Shop they would have had a sign saying the flyer was wrong. But we had gone to Best Buy. Grab the mouse, wave the flyer, and ask for price matching. Yes, we were abusing the policy, and if they had said “No”, we wouldn’t have put up a fight. They tried to phone Future Shop for confirmation, but couldn’t get through. But when in doubt, the customer is apparently right.
So, new mouse!

Busy day today.
It started at the crack of dawn with a dentist appointment. I dislike going to the dentist because my teeth are in bad condition. They keep saying they are good, but I have a bad history. Several years ago I was a bit sensitive on my left teeth, so I brushed harder there. That just made things worse. End result: My gums have receded there and any activity in the area hurts.
Other than that, it is just an hour of my time.
This evening I tried a new recipe for chicken. Turned out well, but a touch salty. I’m just not sure if I used the right amount of chicken…
It’s bitterly cold here. With the windchill it is in the high thirties, or low thirties, whichever part is closer to minus forty. Thank goodness I have indoor heated parking at home and work. I’ve been sealing myself away from the horror.