Heard out and about...

"In this car, we don't have capital punishment. We have Marshall."
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You know things are fucked up when you think -17 is warm. Dude, after -37 last week, I'll take it. I don't really know what I'd do if it was cold and humid. We're kind of lucky that it's dry cold. Either way, I've managed to pick up a spectacular case of the flu. In the last 24 hours, it's increased ten-fold. I wished for sweet, sweet death tonight. Death didn't come. 

I just found out that there's a BluDot retailer right next to my office. This could be a very bad thing. Apartmenttherapy continues to be the downfall of my existence. As does Chapters, my own place of employment. Really, I'd like to just be independently wealthy and buy all the shit my heart desires. 

I went to work tonight even though I skipped out on work today. Well, less skipped out on, more slept so I didn't look completely like death. I'm fairly certain I contaminated the entire store. And as usual, I found about a hundred books that I'd like to buy. And Jarred was hot. The end.

Now, I'm going to go to sleep and pretend that I won't be sick when I wake up. Even though I will be.

Hallelujah to the ones we love

So, I finished The Shack last night. Aside from finding it a little more than a stretch of the imagination, I liked it. It presented a lot of the ideas I was already familiar with from church, but they did it in a way that didn't make it feel overly preachy. I also, between reading the BEE novel and The Shack, read For One More Day by Mitch Albom.

I always forget how easy his books are to get through.

Today would be more fail, except I know that mitchell is in town and if I'm cold at -25 (-38 with windchill), then he's just become a eunuch. It's v. cold right now.

The Secret Valentine EP is kind of a lot ridiculous, so let's all take some comfort in that. Don't stop, get it, get it.
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This is the latest from Saddlecreek...

I am Melinda, this is my heart.

The more I listen to Motion City, the more I realize that they could be my new Blink 182. It's cliche for a band to save your life, so let's just say they enrich mine. Really, I was listening to a bunch of stuff I haven't listened to for a year or so and trying to remember albums that I loved at one point. I was such a stereotypical twenty-two year old. I'm still stereotypical, but now I'm a year older.

I'm an official employee of Chapters now. For now, forever. 

I'm considering a Toronto visit in March, but only because I'm so ridiculous I can't stand myself. I can't really help it that I'm a suck for anything acoustic gingers. 

Mitchell told me that since I'm a femmebot now I have to be more careful where I toss my hair. This seems to be true. Except that buttflap boy shall not get a chance to sniff my hair now. Fail, Scott.

Meghan is such motherfucking win. I hope they send their apologizes if it becomes an issues. 

Oh my God. Epic fail on the weather's behalf. It's -44 with windchill. How is that possible? My fingertips are still tender from walking in this morning. I don't care how lazy it looks, I'm taking a cab from my office to the train station. I stopped twice this morning during the seven blocks and it was nowhere near enough.

The Christmas party was a lot of fun on the weekend. The highlight was definitely talking Ryan Adams with the resident werewolf. He and I both really like him and this was the first time we'd ever discussed it. He also got to see Wilco. My jealousy was showing.

I'm currently downloading several albums to give to him, because no one should have to wait to listen to Ryan Adams.

Starbucks effed my drinks up this morning. Fail. But that seems to be the case more and more when I go in there. Oh well. I guess it's really my own fault, right? Learn me to be addicted to Starbucks.

Also, be it forever known that Meghan is The Shit for taking in drunk girls and putting up with their rambling that makes no sense. ilu.

Tonight is dinner with Blaine and co. Chapters called to see if I could come in tonight and if I didn't want to see *a movie so badly tonight, I might've said yes. It would've gotten me out of dinner.

Oh well, I'll suck it up [that's what SHE said] and go to dinner. Meghan is my emergency call at 8 p.m. and if I'm not dead from the amount of dairy I've consumed today, I'll go have mini-hangs with her.

It's two weeks to Christmas day! Do you know what your presents are?





*Twilight. Again. Oh my God, that movie is never not funny.

I love the whole world...

I finished reading The Rules of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis. It kind of made me want to be a giant cokehead in the eighties. And then I remembered that I was four when the eighties ended. That would've just been in bad taste. Coke before the age of six is totally unacceptable. 

Lately, I've been watching some YouTube and I'm in love with the Discovery Channel commercial. I managed to download the song, which was pretty cool. I'm currently downloading the Stephanie Meyer book Twilight. I've read it and seen it, but I always like listening to books on tape when I'm on the C-Train. Unless I'm reading a book, which I've been doing a lot more lately. I finally bought and read The Bro Code and it is my goal to be a Wing Woman to all of my bros. 

If a girl sets you up with her hot friend, she has Wing Woman potential. If she sets you up with other hot friends after you slept with the first one and didn't call her back, she's a bona fide Wing Woman. Since I have morals that are as loose as Belle Watling, that shouldn't be a problem for me.

I got all of my Christmas wrapping/addressing done. All that's left now is to take a few items to the post office and mail them off. 

Today at church was weird. It's the first time I've been there in probably a month. That's what going out and partying every weekend will do to you. Well, it's also the first time I've had a chance to debut Melinda 2.0 there and it resulted in some very odd attention from some very odd boys. Note, odd doesn't mean ugly, it apparently just means boys who are shallow as balls. I think I have some sort of dinner date on Thursday. 

Blaine was the most amusing. I was avoiding another boy by calling Meghan in the hall and he started walking over with purpose, so I got off the phone with Meghan thinking he had something important to say. He just said "Melinda, I haven't seen you in fifteen or twenty years." Which would mean the last time he saw me was when I was about eight years old. I've seen him since then, it's hard not to when you go to the same church. Anyway, he just kept looking at me and saying "Wow, you've grown up." And then later he was like "So, what are you doing on Wednesday night?" "I work that night." "Oh, what about Thursday?" "Um, I don't think anything." "Would you like to come over to dinner at my place?" So. Thursday Night Girls Club will have a lot to talk about over espresso and water. In order, I got chatted up by: Blaine, Steve, Blaine, Richard, Blaine, Andrew, Blaine, Scott, Blaine, and Blaine. I'm sensing some sort of pattern there. I was only there for an hour!

I think it's time for bed for me, so...

I haven't tried it but I think I've quite decided I will wake you when you're dead.

Man I miss Piebald. Travis Shettel's half hour of power, anyone? Okay, less half-hour more ten minutes, but whatever. They only had a forty minute set and when you spend most of it shittalking your guitarist for getting kicked out of Herbrew school, there's only so long you have for your solo songs.

I had an awesome night at Chapters last night. A woman came in looking for Breaking Dawn and I probably talked with her for half an hour about what we consider to be classic children's literature. We talked about Bridge to Terebithia and how we thought it translated well to the big-screen and about The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy and how it made me want to vomit with rage at how much they effed that one up.

Then to congratulate myself I bought the graphic novel adaptations of Neverwhere, Stardust, a new novel called Is/Was, and One More Day. I don't really know how I feel about Tuesdays With Morrie, because I remember a joke about it on Family Guy.

"Do you like my ass?"
"Yes."
"Do you like cake?"
"Yes."
"Do you want to eat cake off my ass?"
"Yes."

Sometimes my brain does cutaways.

I wasn't all that pleasant to be around yesterday during the day because some person decided to pawn work off onto me. What I did usually takes him/her all day, and I definitely had it done in about an hour. I'm pretty excited for the next time he/she asks me to do his/her work for him/her. Mitchell told me exactly what to say to him/her and it's going to be priceless to see the look on his/her face. Gosh, the pronoun game is fun.

Chapters in general is really fun, even though I'm buying books like they're going out of style. Lately, I've been thinking more and more about something a friend said, which was that they wanted to have the kind of book collection that if they were ever forced to flee the country, it would be their books they took with them. I think I'm getting there. I'm also debating how to organize my books. I've started shelving them with the spines at the edge of the shelves so the disparity of size matters less. I found out there are people who are just as anal about that as I am. There are also people who are anal about the movie tie-in editions and mass-market paperback editions. Finally, I don't feel like an anal-retentive bastard about wanting certain books.



I don't feel like a bad person now for wanting that ^^^ instead of this:



The top one is trade-paperback and the bottom one is mass-market. No big plans this weekend other than to curl up with my laptop and a cup of tea. And now, I do work.

I just got invited to Wingo. Wings+Bingo=Awesome Tuesday Night? Maybe, maybe. Except that I only eat wings in certain company because they're so messy and the last time I played Bingo, I was too drunk for real life.

Oh well, it's a Tuesday. Hey Lush, have fun.

Mitchell likes the hair, Meghan likes the hair, I like the hair. Everyone seems to like the hair, so I think I'll make it my signature. Like Lucille Ball's lips.

Meghan and I are going to see Twilight again. Yes, we're ridiculous, but seriously. I don't think we've ever had so much fun watching a movie! Maybe this time we'll bring booze in and play the drinking game. Seriously, that vomit face? Never not good. Also, I definitely just told her: I'll get the tickets, you get the failbucks?

The back of my hand is itchy. When your palm is itchy, it means you're going to get money. I think the back of my hand is itchy because I want to spend money. I'm done my Christmas shopping so that just means shopping for myself. Oh! I got a free subscription to Nylon, which is fun. I didn't think I would because normally those offers don't extend to Canada, but this one did and it was awesome to come home last night and find the new issue in my mailbox, just waiting for me.

If I don't go to Wingo tonight, it's laundry and cleaning, something I've totally neglected in the past few weeks. Oh well, c'est la vie. Maybe just one round.

Apparently I'm giving Dolly Parton hair a try these days. It's getting long and while it's fun, it's a pain to style. So have some pictures from when I was "too pretty for Chapters."

Me at the start of the night.

Me at the end of the night.

I ended up going to see Twilight again. I don't regret it, Jasper is a total hottie, Emmett is a total dork, and Edward is a total tool. It goes without saying that I would have sex with each and every single one of those characters. 

So far tonight, I've had two drunk dials, a drunk text, and concert call. I had another two drunk dials last night. I'm pretty sure that makes tonight made of win. That's not even counting the amount of Starbucks consumed and the books I bought.

"Money. Sex. Money. Money. Sex. Money. Cats."

Fuck, some people are twats.

Meghan, I'll tell you who tomorrow when we're having hangs, because what else do we do with our lives? Also, I have some of that faily eyelash glue still stuck to my eyelashes. That's just not fair.

Last night, pre-Twilight, post-ogling my hot-ass manager, Meghan and I came to the conclusion that we're roommates that live in different houses. For example. I will wander over to her place and go in and curl up on her bed while waiting for her to finish getting ready so we can go out and do the same thing we always do [Starbucks, smoke our faces off, and talk about Monoply/Life: The FBR edition]. Or we will go to Chapters and it's not even in question if she can use my employee discount. Basically, it rules.

I think I'm pretty much done with Facebook. It just annoys me now.

The plan this weekend is to be at home for as much of it as possible and rip the last of my CDs, get my paperwork all filed, and be ready for winter. I bought a turtleneck today and it itches like Gabe's crotch. But it looks cute, unlike Gabe's crotch, so I'm keeping it.

I work tonight and I'm so excited, now when they page a cashier to cash, I can actually answer the page.

This weekend:

• Laundry
• Put away CDs
• Finish The Rules of Attraction
• Clean room from top to bottom
• Clean bathroom
• Go through closet
• Put up TC prints, my walls are too bare
• Get my haircut? Maybe?

I also don't really know how I feel about this because, wow, I've wanted that forever. But. Wow. I don't want to think about that because that'll get my hopes up. I think what I'll just say is that I hope things work out for the best for everyone.

Ah ha. Internet, trying to trip me up from telling my offensive jokes. Yeah, right.

Q. How do you tell if a native woman is menstruating?

A. She's only wearing one sock.

Q: What do you get if you put 50 lesbians and 50 natives in one room?

A: 100 people who don't do dick.

Q: How do you tell if an East Indian woman is pregnant?

A: The red dot on her forehead turns blue.

Q: Why do they call native men braves?

A: Have you seen the women they have to fuck?

Did you hear about the east indian man who put odor eaters in his shoes? He disappeared.

Q: How do you tell if a lesbian built a house?

A: There's no studs, it's all tongue in groove.

If a Hudderite couple gets divorced, are they still brother and sister?

I'm not sure if I remember any more of the jokes that Paul* told us. But he used to be a stand-up comedian. Blame him if you're offended, not me.

But when I heard the word "Brave", I definitely wanted to watch Ernest Goes To Camp. Who doesn't love that shit? Definitely me. I'm going to proudly watch Ernest Goes To Camp and think about really offensive things until I go to sleep. 

Good Night Calgary, and Good Night Adam, my friend for 5 Years. We don't need the theatre, because we have a long-ass friendship and siblinghood that isn't dependent on blood/legal relations.

A is for the way you look at me.

D is for the only one I see.

A is very, very extra-ordinary.

M is even more than anyone that you adore and love. 

Oh, wait, that's not ADAM, that's LOVE. Oh well, jugs of triples do that to you. At least I'm mostly coherent in this drunk post. Hearts and stars and kisses and love.

And she never lost her head, even when she was giving head.

Hey Babe, take a walk on the wild side.

I'm officially done my Christmas shopping. I just submitted the last online order for delivery in 6 - 8 weeks. I'm feeling good about it.

Oh, I can't stand the hype. But I can get behind best friends bringing boxes. Especially when those boxes are full of the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree I so desperately wanted. Mitchell is kind of awesome like that.

I didn't get as much done as I wanted to this week and it's partly my fault, partly life's.

I just found out my boss is out of town all next week! Hurray! I can actually get things done when I'm not chained to my desk doing to most ridiculous shit ever for her. Oh, apparently three of my bosses are gone next week. I just might have to take a sick day and enjoy the beautiful fall. Or the freezing cold. It'll probably be Thursday so Meghan and I can secure our spots early for Twilight. Yes, I'm a loser. Yes, I'm totally okay with it.

Work tonight at Chapters and possibly reading more of The Rules of Attraction. How fast can you powerhouse a coffee? I'll stick with green tea tonight and see if that makes the night go by just as fast. I'm actually crazily proud of myself. I've sold 3 of these really expensive box sets at work and it's kind of awesome.

I'm missing Vancouver like mad right now. Last year, I was in the same mood for the same reason. Maybe one day I'll get to go and not come back. You can't understand the discontent with Calgary until you've left and had to come back.

I know, I know. I want! I'm pretty much in love with two things on the Urban Outfitters site.



and



Yeah, I'm actually super lame and no one is surprised. Things like this make me wish I lived in Edmonton or Vancouver, because then I could buy them and my life would be complete. Let's be honest, that Charlie Brown tree? More room for presents!

So, Chapters is going well. I'm secretly kind of in love with books. I keep doing re-shelve or tasking and finding books that I'm like "Hm, I want to read this." But I'm being very careful about not buying everything I see or I'd definitely need to buy a new bookshelf right away.

I already need a new bookshelf. As soon as I move out, I'll probably look into getting this:



because it can handle LPs and oversized books. I'll likely get it in black, though. I might grab a storage basket or two for the miscellaneous 45s and headphones and cords and whatnot that I have.

I'm finally getting a physical copy of Howl
This week is going to be a little more relaxed than last week. In no particular order, I must:

• Change my car's oil
• Get a quote on repairing the driver's side door of my car
• Take wire CD rack to Meghan
• Rip some more CDs to my laptop
• Pick up the last of my Christmas shopping: 1 physical gift card, 3 online orders of gift cards, and 1 gift for the boy who has everything except me.
• Get a hair cut
• Wrap Christmas gifts
• Write 3000 words
• Obtain a copy of How I Met Your Mother Season 1/2

I might also buy The Bro Code, because that shit is awesome. For example:

A bro's mom is off-limits at all times, unless she's a step-mother, she initiates it and is wearing leopard print.

You really can't make that up, can you?

My blackberry is dying a slow painful death. Unavailable on it until further notice. :(

Quiet now, you're sucking the charm out.

That's what she said!

No, but apparently that's what some boys say.

I was in a pretty salty mood because my boss is salty today and she tends to treat everyone like crap when she feels like that. But the way she was being made me feel like it was my fault she was upset. HO NO, not the case. She's pissed at Oliver.

Yay!

I'm mainlining coffee this week like it's going out of style. It is, kind of.

Last night, I saw SawV with Meghan and while most people said "Too much killing, not enough backstory!" I said "loves me some backstory! Pls to be telling me more about *********'s sordid past!"

I'm pretty much awesome at not giving spoilers.

UGH. I'm so unimpressed with courier companies today. FedEx and UPS can eat poop. I definitely just hung up on the asshole UPS guy, he doesn't deserve to share the phone line with me. Richard also doesn't deserve to breathe the same air as me.

My Christmas shopping is almost done. I just have to go pick up Meghan's, a few random gift cards, and actually sit down and do a small amount of online ordering. HA, Meghan, you didn't really think I'd buy your present right in front of you, did you?

This scar is a fleck...

Life is so much more beautiful when you're listening to the right music. I was de-junking last night while listening to Stars and while I was tossing things, all I could hear was "God that was strange to see you again, introduced by a friend of a friend." Maybe my high school memories can be other people's memories now.

I'm actively trying to become a hider, not a seeker. I promise, it's not the bad thing you're thinking it is.

Right now, I'm listening to First Impressions of Earth and I always forget that this album will never make me feel the same things twice, because you only live once. Incidentally, this is where one of my favourite lyrics comes from. "You're the prettiest, smartest captain of the team. I love you more than being seventeen."

That's powerful to me, loving somone more than youth. I hope it's worth it one day.
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i still don't know exactly who i am, i never will oh man.

Well, blogger. You don't lmoe it but I've been blogging on you all day.

i schooled allison on how to drink like a woman, aka drinking a cooler in 3 seconds (read: 8 seconds)

i went to a house party where andrew was interested but i was not because HELLO! drew = the best times.

meghan is better times. caps wish they were involved in my drunkest post ever. 

theyre not. nor is punctuation. 

stupid davis. trying to get back together  with chantal. dnw, man, dee en dub.

Whatever, I haven't gotten over my crush from grade 10, yall don't know me. yall don't know my life.

apparently ill do some punctuation and spelling but not all. don't judge me?

Totally fucked

At cobra and it feels so perfect.
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Chicken necks?

So. We flew in Tuesday and got completely messed up. We watched TAI and were disappointed in their performance. I'm sorry you're such an enormous cockface, William.

He looked about 3 days old.

We met the usual type of randoms and then came back to the apartment and tweaked for eight and a half years.

I might be drunk right now. Whatevs, it's evening somewhere in the world and I'm on <I>vacation<i>. Yeah, I tried drunk html.

Tonight is cobra, ftsk, and an afterparty at republic? Je ne sais pas. Time for a smoke and picking up more mix. Vahdka lemonade, please and thank you.

Remember, you're only as big as your imagination. So continue to box yourself in while I wander the plains of africa and hunt big game for sport.

Oh, one more thing: I might also be an asshole. SURPRISE!
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Brief but sweet

1. Finishing twilight saga in less than a week.

2. Vancouver in 24-ish hours.

3. Excellent times.

4. Tying the knot not knowing how to not go.
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Wow. Wowww. Okay. No. We do that outside.

If I loan you something, there are a few expectations:

1. I get it back.

2. It's not sticky with some substance I can't identify.

Those seem pretty simple. 

In better news, I got a job at Chapters.

Wow. The new Macbooks? Totally an unpopular opinion, but I think they look so ugly. I was a really big fan of the white plastic look. There's a reason I haven't invested in an iMac and it's definitely because I don't like the aluminum look. It's the same reason I haven't replaced my iPod.

Fail, Apple.

In other, awesome news:

• I'm addicted to Aparment Therapy
• I voted!
• I took the weekend off and I feel better for it!
• I had an awesome interview last night at the bookstore and apparently got a killer reference from Brandy this morning.
• I get to quite at the theatre, because they're bigger d-bags than [insert name of person you feel is a large d-bag]
• Cobra Starship and Academy Is... are coming up next week and they're never not fun. I suppose I should get on listening to Fast Times.

Yes, things are shaping up to be pretty good.

If you're going to replace me, at least let my replacement be competent.

Cheers!

The hair!

So. Joe, not injured in the van accident. Has a fro.

Ian, not injured in the van accident. Has a fro.

Ray, not dead (yet). Has a fro.

Max, still alive despite not knowing Ryan J. Has a fro.

Travis, knee injured. Cut off fro two days prior to injury.

Adam, bottle to the face. Fro cut off to dead ferret (still mildly protective?), then changed to short hair two weeks before bottling incident.

Requires further research. Will write groundbreaking paper on the insular effects of the afro.

MH
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My life has become an interesting pop song...

But no one is singing along. Perhaps that's because I haven't told anyone the melody.

This past week has been non-stop go go go. I worked Monday night and because we dicked around there, we didn't get out of the theatre until 2 a.m. Yay for working longer than you paid yourself for!

Tuesday through Thursday I volunteered at the film festival. Since last night was my last night at the film festival, Davis decided we were going to drink rum all night while working. This wasn't particularly difficult for me as my job was to scan in prepurchased tickets and download film box office control codes. He, however, was working in booth, threading projectors that are as old as Alabama. Between him, me, and another guy named Chad, we finished off half a 26 of white rum.

Apparently that wasn't enough for us. No, we had to go consume more alcoholic beverages at a place called Bottlescrew Bill's. They're famous for Around The World In Eighty Beers. If you finish all eighty beers in a year, you get a plaque with your name on it. A boy from my office finished them in a matter of two months. It was kind of awesome. Anyway, last night we slammed back beer, shots consisting of Pear, Creme de Menthe, and Sambuca, as well as Sour Jacks at the end of the night and vodka slimes. This still was not enough for us! We went back to Davis' friend's place and continued to drink vodka, rum, and something called Wild Turkey, which Davis made exceptionally strong and I didn't finish. He took one sip at the end of the night and said "I am so damn proud of you for even making it halfway through that cup, Mindy."

We stumbled out of there just after 3 a.m., two drinks and a whole lot of Michael Jackson later. Funnily enough, when we left the theatre to buy the original rum, Davis told me about a party where he and Clements both slept with girls from our theatre and he said he did not picture the evening ending like that. As we were walking to the hotel to get a cab, we talked about how we definitely didn't see this evening coming. And then we decided to hang out more.

I proceeded to cab it home and pour myself into bed around 4 a.m. and then wake up at 6:30 a.m. to get ready for work. If I pushed getting out of bed to 6:50 a.m., well, that's between me and my blankets.

Air Canada Vs. West Jet

Little known fact: I prefer Air Canada to West Jet. I don't like the pep and perk when I'm travelling. I feel and look like crap, so should you. Okay, the honest reason? I think their seats are more comfortable and I like the flights they offer better. If West Jet were more willing to work with my travel schedule, I'd be down. Also, I'm an Aeroplan member, so I get points from them.

So. Why does the title of my blog today seem like they're duking it out for my love? Well, it's been in the news that the price of oil has been going down and that's great for travellers. In theory it should mean Air Canada is getting rid of the fuel surcharges. Not the case.

Today I had two emails in my inbox, one from Air Canada and one from West Jet. I opened Air Canada's first and was surprised to learn that they had decided to add the fuel surcharge to flight prices. Not a bad idea, I thought, it'll save people the surprise of seeing it among the taxes and wondering why the price of a flight is so high.

I opened my next email and it said that West Jet was entirely doing away with the fuel surcharge now that the price of gas is down.

Hmm. This seemed fairly curious to me. Why would one airline decide to put it in the price of their tickets while another one choose to do away with it entirely? It doesn't make sense at all! Oh well, here's to hoping Air Canada comes to their senses soon.

Remember that time that I would only smoke marlboros?

Me either. This past night was a gong-show. I wish I could accurately represent what happened? But in order:

1. Renaldo, giving us some Mean Girls. Madge being straight-up 50s. 

2. Not getting enough drinks but being danced all up on right away.

3. Having two gays to rescue you instead of just one. 

4. Chugging coolers.

5. Hot wrist-bandana guy being too hot for real life.

6. Meeting a pornstar and not realizing he was a pornstar until Landon recognized from pornographic material he has studied.

7. Rosalie and Alex coming to an afterparty with us. 

8. Our own afterparty being better than anything else we could have done.

9. Almost getting killed by group of slightly homophobic people who don't take too kindly to being flipped off. No, actually.

10. Underwear party with painting, uninvited upstairs guests entering in the most unusual way ever, and a group bath.

11. Our paintings including peppercorns and bandages. 

12. The most awkward morning after this side of Mary finding out she was pregnant with Jesus.

13. Random gay men being perfectly awesome to dance with. 

14. Short gay men running rampant!

15. Go-Go Dancers! 

16. Someone totally fucking calling Piece of Me 8 seconds before it played. 

17. Alex passing out on the couch and us having to check to make sure he was alive and ensuring he was in the proper vomiting position.

18. Nerdy straight boys? No. 

19. Once again making out with a gay boy.

20. Mixing champagne, vodka, rockstar for the cocktail of doom. 

21. Drinking a silo, van, and bucket of alcohol. 

22. Spoon-dancing? Something involving spoons over our nipples and Landon grabbing my breasts for no apparent reason. 

23. Drinking while watching The Gods Must Be Crazy and thinking it was a documentary.

24. The bathroom being the best fucking seat in the house. 

25. Corporate discussions on the balcony. 

And now, I think I want to go smoke with Landon, my new BFF from last night. He and I might actually be the same person. We're trying to piece together the evening and all of us have different recollections of everything but something none of us can figure out is whether or not we were wearing pants when the guy scaled the wall, Spiderman-style.

Wearing Pants Makes You Popular

The title of today's blog comes from a sign I saw today in H&M. I have my doubts about the truthfulness of it. If people were meant to wear pants, there wouldn't be the show Pants Off Dance Off, now would there?

Bygones. 

I'm currently updating from Mitchell's bed in Vancouver. It's not as sexy as it sounds. No, actually it is. I arrived yesterday evening amidst unusual circumstances and was whisked away to sushi with Mitchell. After, we watched Everything Gone Green and had drinks.

It's a wonderful movie and I highly recommend it. There were things I picked up on yesterday that I didn't pick up on the first time I watched it. One thing I cannot stress enough is that you should not watch it if you're only watching it because you think it's a stoner comedy. The cover does the film a horrendous disservice by making one think it's some comedy to watch a) about getting blazed or b) while one is blazed. For God's sake, it's by Douglas Coupland!

This is the cover of the "Unrated Edition", the one that makes it look like a stoner comedy.

This is the "Rated Edition", that much more accurately depicts the film's content.

Ugh. Forget this, I'm going to just tell you that today I bought:

A jacket

3 CDs

4 DVDs

1 Comic

And now I'm going to go. While I have the chance, I'll say sorry in advance for all the drunk dials.

Let's go outside and we'll play William Tell

I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.

When you start listening to me, I'll start listening to you.

Update in point form!

• Not moving out. Bummed.
• Back from LA. Sort of miss parts of it.
• Vancouver in 2 weeks.
• Epic room clean scheduled for the rest of forever. Let's box it up.
• $20 scanners because I am the queen.
• Decorating ideas.
• Agreeing with Kyle on things.
• Vancouver in 2 months.
• The idea of karma.
• Road trips in 1 year.
• Your face!

Just kidding on that last one, I love your face. This update has been brought to you by the letters C, M, K, and the number 7.

Take your zen where you can get it. Two of my personal favourites? Quartering 6" pizzas and replacing the toner cartridge on my printer. I just got a sheet out of the printer and it was so crisp, it made me wonder how I managed to live for so long with a dying cartridge.

Last night I moved the first of my boxes to Meghan's and realized how truly, truly awesome this is going to be. Everytime I'm there, I think "Wow, in a week, I totally won't have to leave because it's late and I'm tired. I can just go upstairs to my room and go to bed. It's a little heady and all that. Meghan, I think you should meet Kassie and see if maybe you want her to be a third roommate if Nadia doesn't work out.

Ugh. I've had this open all day. Time to leave.

The Faculy + Pizza + Cigarettes + The Thursday Night Girls = Doing it right.

Thursday night is the new Friday night, bitches. 

L.A. Times takes on a whole new meaning in a week. I have to start packing. Moving out is sooner than later and I'm nowhere near prepared. There's no way of knowing. Why don't they just admit they're scared? 'Cause it's already showing. 

The years of playing catch up have finally caught up to me

Obligatory post-Warped Tour update:

Thank God for:

1 - Cool breezes
2 - Merch guys not being allowed to charge extra for the musk
3 - Brickbreaker
4 - Hip(ster) flasks
5 - Skills
6 - Roommates with wine
7 - The best line-up since '05? '06? '07 was a dud.

I'm not nearly as sunburned as I thought I would be and except for a little bit on my face, I'm actually not sunburned at all.

I copied down the setlists that I cared about and maybe I'll figure out the ones I care about now. Best part? Someone being too busy shittalking to play their set. Oops, oh well, the kid wasn't in on the joke anyway.

Sorry, guys, you can't afford me.

I'd like to do the last 24 hours over and over again, even if it means going to bed with a hangover again and again. Maybe one day I'd get it completely right. Practice makes perfect.

Oh me, oh my. It's been a few days since I updated about Team Hannah. Nothing new on that front, except we did discover a picture of a PandaDragon, which is our best guess as to her true species.

I just opened my copy of Clarity, which I purchased on the same evening as the Team Hannah shirt, and found a note that read:

Hey Lisa,

I was going to get

you rubber vomit

because you barf a lot,

but I got you this

CD instead.

Merry Christmas,

Jay

And I'm sharing that fact with you because I can. Hasta, tea time!

Go Team Hannah!

Today I started reading “Eats, Shoots and Leaves” by Lynne Truss. I'm hoping to become a more grammatical person. It already seems very dry and witty.

Work went well today. I found out last week that one of the co-workers I work closely with is moving to our US office. It's going to be an adjustment without Adam around but life is about adjustment. I went for a walk at noon today to get some pop from 7-11. It's nice to step outside and remember that you are more than just your awesome ability with HS codes and ability to sweet talk customs agents.  

I had a brief moment of self-doubt this afternoon and it felt really, really terrible. But I'm trying to work through things like that so I can be a better person so I sat down and repeated in my head “This is not because you're boring or uncool or unlikeable.” Of course, admitting that on a blog makes me boring, uncool, and unlikeable. But I don't really care, because this is for me. The people who read it just get the privilege of knowing me that much better after the fact. 

I went to The Rocket after work at got a really, reallllly sweet shirt printed. Remember Hannah? I know you guys all know who Hannah is and how she makes my days go a lot smoother with “HO NO!” ANYWAY, check this out:

I'd like everyone to meet the Captain of Team Hannah.

Sometimes being a girl sucks because words curve where you don't want them to.

99, because I knew it was some really awesome hockey player's number. Turns out it was Wayne Gretzky. Meet The Great One. 

Oh, she's just being Mindy. This is in bed, which is actually where 99% of my pictures are taken. I'm not perverted. Just lazy.

And now I'm going to go get a really good night's sleep. But I'll leave you with this picture:

$8.50. I won't even show you the other two I got for $4 each, you'll just die of jealousy. Well. Not over Terry Jacks, but over The Muppets and John Denver's Christmas Special.

I'm listening to Motion City Soundtrack's album and contemplating a conversation I had in the wee hours of Saturday morning. I don't know how many people listened to the last song on that album or how many people listen to that band at all, but here, have the song that is about to become the soundtrack to my life:

Motion City Soundtrack - Even If It Kills Me

And I'll do whatever it takes, even if it kills me. Pick it up, pick me out of it. 

I know I've said it time and time again, but I mean it. Everything that came before this doesn't matter because it has nothing to do with what I'm doing now. I'm not ashamed of where I came from, I just don't want to continue down that pathway. I've slept better the past two nights than I've slept in years, so thanks. You know who you are. 

I think I have strep again. This is so not my lifetime. If I get strep every time I hook up, I'm going to probably kill someone. I'm compensating by laying down and sleeping. Watching a lot of TV. I finished Season 1 of Dead Like Me. Now I'm going to start in on the Season 2, then it's totally time for The Hills. I'm still bizarrely infatuated with it.

This past weekend was Motion City and it was awesome to finally see them playing a headlining set. And I get to see them on Warped Tour. I won't go into details about the weekend, I just realize there are some things I need to change and ways I need to assert myself. This time I mean it, I'm coming clean. [While I was at the show, Jack text messaged me and it said "Someone just came on the walkie and said 'Hannah needs a new shirt' AND YOU MISSED IT!"]

Vancouver is soon but LA is sooner and I can't wait for either one. I'm going to work my tail off tomorrow at work and I'm also going to go get myself a bus pass for August. Okay, sleep for me now. 

The highlight of my day so far

I walk to the clinic unless it's super cold or super rainy. Today, I walked to the clinic, even though it looked like it was about to rain, Noah's ark-style. On the way to the clinc, there are underpasses that you have to walk under. No big deal, I do this all the time. On my way under, I saw a midget. That in and of itself is pretty awesome. But then I saw a homeless man urinating just off the walkway and the midget and I exchanged equally disgusted looks. Midget interaction, guys. That's the highlight of my day.

Are you sure you want a piece of me?

My body says sleep but my brain says be prolific. The eternal struggle. I feel as though it's been a very long week and it only just started. 

I've heard some new music today and I heard a song today that reminded me how much I want it. I need to find a music program that isn't Kazaa or Limewire because I don't want my computer pooched for the rest of eternity. I watched Saved! tonight and I forgot how much I love that movie. It reminds me of such a specific time in my life and how it showed one person that indie was not always shit. I like to think that I invented you. ANYWAY, the point of that was they use this Arthur Joseph song in it and the song always tugs at my heartstrings. 

Wow. Piece of Me by Britney Spears just came on my iTunes and it took me back to February where it was a constant rotation of Blackout and Viva La Cobra. There's nothing quite like drinking champagne out of paper coffee cups in the back of a cab. It's certainly the way to do things right.

The cards show a page six blind item for September. I can feel the excitement building in the air.

This weekend I met the most obnoxious BC stoner and then watched The Plain White Ts. I felt bad, the crowd left after they played Hey There, Delilah. They have more than one song. True story. I definitely grinned until my face hurt at You and Me. Because sometimes that shit is just spot on. You and me, we like the same kind of music. That's why we make a good you and me. 

It always makes me feel better to know I have these kind of friends. I know, I just quoted the world's biggest asshole/sellout/best friend/heartbreaker/drama king/genuinely really nice guy on here but it's only because I really feel like I have a few friends who could be that kind of friend for me if I needed them to be.

Tonight I got a message that said someone was feeling nostalgic a moment ago and they wanted me to be with them. When I think of Vancouver, it's always sunny and warm, even when we're getting rained on and standing in front of church doors saying Our Fathers like they make a difference. Saying September is soon is my way of keeping myself sane, didn't you know?

You are every one of my favourite songs. You're the way my red shoes look against wet pavement. You're the perfect smoke ring. You're a perfectly clear night where the stars are shining. You're the moment where I feel infinite and insignificant all at once. You're you, and that's somehow even better than everything else.

It's official, yo. I'm going to see Motion City Soundtrack with my brother not this weekend but next weekend in Edmonton. I'm actually pretty bummed about gas prices being what they are because a half hour flight sounds a lot better than a four hour bus ride. But! It's actually cheaper for me to take the bus than drive because a tank of gas is upwards of $60 now and the bus ticket, round-trip, was $57. It would take me a tank to get there and a tank to get back. You do the math.

I'm pretty excited about life for the next two months. Let's do the schedule:

July 19 - 20: Edmonton for Motion City w/ Jeremy
August 6: Warped Tour Calgary
August 16 - 19: Los Angeles for Warped Tour and everything else that L.A. entails w/ Meghan and Maroo
August 20: Mayhaps moving out w/ Meghan
August 30: Oasis and Ryan Adams w/ Ryan W and Brendon
September 11 - 15: Vancouver to see Mitchell

Don't you wish you had my two months coming up?

I've also, at the suggestion of Meghan, started coding my dayplanner. Yes. I'm really that lame. But it's good to be organized, and not in the "Red in the morning, yellow at lunch, blue in the afternoon" kind of way.

Oy vey it's a been awhile. Things are a lot better on my end. The Conference 'O' Doom is over and I no longer have to meet in the boardroom for six hours out of what were turning into ten hour days. I'm grateful for everyone who kept me sane. They know who they are.

As of right now, I'm setting a new list of goals for myself because the old ones belonged to the old blog which belonged to the old me. There are things I find more important now than getting a huge record collection or seeing a certain band a certain number of times. Like I said, this time I mean it, I'm coming clean.

Meghan and I had Starbucks hangs last night and the newest love of my life is Venti Iced Passion Tea Lemonade Unsweetened. Sorry, guys, you can't compete. I'm in the middle of reading Mailman and I wish it would hurry up and get to something interesting. The premise sounded so promising. That's what she said.

I have two flights coming up in two months and I'm deathly excited for both of them. Seeing someone too often spoils me but not seeing them often enough makes my heart break a little more.

Public service announcement:

Your shit is not more important than anyone else's. Don't try to order my priorities for me. I assure you, it will all get done. If you want it done now, do it yourself.
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We're not that far from voting Feldman-Haim.

Today, I got to utter the best sentence ever and it is the only reason I know the movie I was watching was a good movie. "Everyone dies except Corey Feldman."

This has been a long week. I worked almost fifty hours at the office and another twenty at the theatre and when you're not getting paid for your overtime at the office, that's kind of a big deal. Thankfully, I went and drank with Meghan and watched Family Channel. Mitchell can attest to the fact that I love watching it when I'm drunk. I woke up one morning in our hotel room and it was on, apparently I made him leave it on that while we were trying to sleep.

I needed to just unwind and decompress last night after my week. I was ready to kill someone yesterday when I was in the office. Mostly Muthu. Who am I kidding, always Muthu.

Right! The reason for this blog: If you message on AIM and don't get a response right away, be patient. It's the conference of doom this week and I'm kind of all over the place. Don't give me death, even when I wish for it. And don't ask me why I just ate five Flinstone chewable vitamins in a row, because I wouldn't be able to tell you.

Anyway, I should attempt to get some sleep before tomorrow rolls around. I don't want to die before Corey Feldman.

Happy birthday

Happy fucking birthday to me.
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This is a silly time of day for an update but I just realized today how happy some of my theatre staff makes me. Usually they annoy, frustrate, and irritate me. Today, it was exactly what I needed.

My day at work, despite being able to talk to a really good friend for most of the day, was actually pretty shitty. I'm up to my eyes in work that's been passed off to me by Muthu for a conference I'm not attending at all. I have Adam breathing down my neck about shipments, which is actually the majority of my job and as such I'm usually pretty okay with. I have Karen breathing down my neck about my accounting duties, which I shouldn't actually have, being as they have six people in the accounting department. I have Jack breathing down my neck about travel arrangements for a Chinese delegation that's arriving in a little over a week, again, also a part of my job that I'm pretty okay with.

For example: Adam handed me a stack of CIs and Certificates of Origin to have notarized by Karen. Awesome. I go get the seal and the stamp because Karen always gets me to do that. I find out she's leaving for the next four hours. Not awesome. She doesn't even have time to sign them beforehand so I can just stamp and seal next to her signature. So. She gets back in at 2:30 and I send the documents to the Chamber of Commerce to be certified. I send them on a fireball so they'll be back in time to go to Ottawa. I get a call at approximately 3:30 from the Chamber that says our Arabic documents need to be stamped by a translator. This has never been an issue before. At all. So, I get them back and Adam bitches at me for not getting them out sooner, which really wasn't physically possible.

I'm also kind of salty over the fact that Donna seems to think it's okay to give me Karen's expense reports, even though that's her job. Well, technically, it's Fiona's but Fiona has turned out to be so very useless that I count her as office furniture. I don't even know.

It turned out that all I really needed to do was hear Jack say "HO NO!" It made my day seem infinitely better.

Mitchell was right about green tea and using the bag twice. That sounds a little dirtier than it needed to, but whatever. I wish the rain would stop here. Sometimes I forget that spring is now the rainy season here. We used to have actual spring, now we just have grey skies. The first year I noticed it was when The Day After Tomorrow came out. That came out and then all of a sudden, Calgary just decided to rain and rain and rain. It worried me for the first month.

It no longer worries me.

I got the sweetest Christmas/Birthday present from Mitchell and I keep looking at it with glee. There's a store in Vancouver called Inform Interiors. Douglas Coupland did a limited edition SIGG water bottle for them, limited to 130, and then did a limited edition book of two short stories from Life After God, also limited to a 130. They were then sold in a set and Mitchell got them for me because he is basically the most awesome person in the world.

I've also been unable to stop laughing because of this girl named Hannah. Everything around her goes wrong and so we've basically turned her life into our inside joke. [Note: I'm not kidding, she just fails. She asked a large woman when her due date was.] Every few hours I get a text that says "HO NO! MY HOUSE ON FIRE >.< *POOPING NOISE*" ... Guess you had to be there.

Anyway, I need new shoes as I discovered dreadful holes in my current ones. See above for reasons that holy shoes don't really fly with me.

Happy Belated Birthday Post to Meghan. She's twenty now and I really hope for her sake that twenty is better than nineteen. 

We celebrated in true Meghan and Melinda style and ended up with a bottle of wine cooler left each. It was a good night, we ended up hissing drunk and watching BBW porn at a house party. All in all a good night after a crappy day at the theatre.

Tomorrow is my serious business day and I really don't know what I'm going to do. It's going to be kind of a turning point. At least I know I have everyone important behind me. I don't know what I did in my previous life to deserve such amazing friends but I did something right. Time for Melinda to sleep, because she's beyond tired right now. 

I'm on fire and now I think I'm ready to bust a move.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, we had a list of basic manners at a movie theatre. I wish I could find it.

It's been a busy night tonight. Kung Fu Panda did the majority of our business tonight, which is so ridiculous because it looks terrible to me. I'd rather sit through a conversation with Tom Cruise than watch it. Hm, I'm a tad judgmental tonight. Whatever.

Normally I'm in a better mood but tonight is just. No. I usually have no problem with closing on a friday. I've done it for over 2 years. I have a problem when our only two full times go away for the weekend during summer blockbuster season.

It also occured to me that I haven't been on an honest to god date in two years. Which would make my last date Nick. No thanks. I need to go on a date or something.

Anyway, I'm ready to go home but I still have more than an hour left to go.
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Instead of sleeping, I'm on my blog. Again. This is not a surprise as I really only seem to figure out what I want to say after 11 p.m. I got something off my chest to a friend recently and it felt really good. I've always liked to think our friendship can withstand anything and now I truly, truly believe it can. Here's to you and your poker face, baby. Thank you for the call today, you don't know how badly I needed it.

I'm on Week 3 of my transit experiment. I took my first taxi-ride home from the theatre last night. I guess it's really stopped becoming an experiment and started becoming a total reality. It's nice. I really like it in this weather, even when it rains on my way around at lunch.

I thought tonight about going to the WA Warped, but I'm instead going to the LA one. I'd say "Fuck LA", but I already have my flights booked and I'm meeting up with the best people down there. I'd also say "I'll just do both", but I'm going to be in Vancouver two weeks before. I'd say "Fuck it, I'll do all three", but I can't for the life of me figure out how I'd get to the Gorge.

That reminds me, MF, I'll likely be booking my Vancouver trip soon. I wish I could be out there now. I miss you more than I miss being seventeen.

Happy Month of My Birth. I haven't been up to too much. Went to Seventeenth with Meghan on Friday before getting absolutely plastered with Chardonnay and Martini & Rossi. I woke up yesterday morning feeling like I'd spent all night making out with sandpaper. Obviously, I hadn't, but I had made some very, very unusual drunk dials. God bless wine and the fact that I'm old enough to drink it.

Saturday morning I had a hair appointment, so I now look like this:

Pardon the no make-up, but I'm tired.

Anyway. Off to church now. 

I'm kind of anal about the order of my books. They go alphabetical by author and then alphabetical by book title. Tonight, I was putting away The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks and I noticed I was missing one of my Dave Eggers books. I cannot find A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius! I do not know where it went, at all. I can only think of a few people I loan books to and I don't think any of them have it? If that's the case, I haven't actually had it with me for two years and it's currently sitting somewhere in my aunt's house in Edmonton. I knew living in that city for a month was a bad idea. Oh well, if I have to replace it, I have to. Shit happens. 

I'm currently on Week 2 of my transit experiment. I'm still enjoying it, though I'm sure that will change once the weather turns nasty in the city. Today, I sat on the train and read about twenty pages of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night. I'm enjoying that quite a bit. I'm not sure what I'm going to go with after I read that, but it'll be amusing as well. 

I'm slowly depleting my massive reading list. Unfortunately, it's still going far too slow for my liking. I think what I'm going to do as a goal next year is get one of those "100 Books You Should Read" lists and try to get through all hundred of them in a year. 

Instead of sleeping, I'm blogging and looking at other blogs. I wonder what people will think in twenty years when they think about us using blogs. Will they look at it the same way I look at writing in a paper journal? That is to say, will they think it's a romantic notion but find it difficult to keep up with and ultimately impossible to commit to?

Hm. Also, I'm avoiding the new Indiana Jones movie. I'm not into it, guys. 

Last night at the theatre, we played Epic Battle With Star Wars Toys for two hours instead of being out on the floor like good managers. Blake, Deryck, and Matt showed up at the theatre around 6:30 p.m., still pretty drunk from their afternoon of playing golf on the company tab. Apparently they had to stay at the theatre until they sobered up enough to go to a goodbye party for the theatre's old district manager.

I come back into the office around 6:45 and they've set up two tables and all three of them are picking through action figures from this set. Nadia and I watched them play their first round and then we joined in for the next round. We formed an alliance and completely owned the shit out of everyone else on the table.

It helps that Blake was hammered because he'd had three drinks and he's allergic to alcohol. Highlights of the night? One of the wookies looking like Cock Knocker from Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back. Blake accidentally hitting me in the chest and Deryck saying "You shot where you aimed but you hit where you were looking", and the complete and total ownage of Matt.

After that, we kind of puttered around being completely useless until it was time to close, at which point Nadia and I killed time between closing the day numbers-wise and closing the theatre people-wise with Brickbreaker. I'm up to 9470 as a high score and I finally got to level 16. Unfortunately, that seems to be my Everest.

Well, I'm off to continue doing things for our marketing conference in June.