Older blog entries for zab (starting at number 8)

Being sick really sucks.

Romeo Must Die and Erin Brockovich didn't suck.

Much Music is near the theatre where we saw R.M.D.. Either N-Sync or the Backstreet Boys were there (who cares which) so the entire block was filled with scary teenagers. That sucked.

<blizzard> Was that your ass or your face?
I'm still not sure what to make of that. Blizzard sucks.

Our Giganet stuff appeared. I hope Ben does cool things with it. Ben doesn't suck.

Lesson #1: I can't read movie schedules.
I thought that Romeo Must Die was playing at the Paramount last night. It wasn't, but we'll get to that.

It all started innocently enough. We wanted to have some food with friends and see a fun movie. We had a nice dinner on College and headed to the theatre. We had some time before the movie so we headed over to Sugar Mountain.

Lesson #2: Even after 20-someodd years, eating bags of sugar does bad things to your body.

So keep in mind that from this point on we were constantly popping Reeses Pieces and Jelly Bellys and such.

We were prepared. We had food in us (some with more alcohol than others), and candy. We were ready to see Jet Li kick some ass. But what's this? It isn't playing at 7:45 as we thought. No, its playing at 9:30.

Lesson #3: Buy tickets ahead of time

Ok, so we have a good hour to kill. The Boys decided to go to the Playdium and play video games for an hour. Tyla preferred to hang out in Chapters for a while and then retire.

Lesson #4: Quit while you're ahead. Do like Tyla. Tyla smart.

We had fun at the Playdium, though its no Metreon. blizzard got to use skid marks on a raceway to spell his initials, I showed some Storm Troopers where they could put thir silly cod pieces, and shaver polished his sniping skills. Oh, and it was loud in there. We all came out with headaches. Remember the candy? So we're now on various levels of sugar highs, with headaches, off to see Jet Li kick some ass.

But what's this? The automated teller won't sell us tickets for the 9:30 showing? Maybe its too new, or unrated, or something. No. The counter informs us that the showing is in fact invite-only. Awesome. So we've now spent a good 2 hours of our lives waiting for a movie that we aren't going to see. But we didn't let these 14 or 15 things going wrong deter us, heavens no!

We bought three tickets to see Mission to Mars. Yes, thats right, the movie that everyone we've ever talked to said was awful. We got into the theatre 15 minutes before the show and it was empty. We had our own private screening!

Now, if you've been to the large Famous Players theatres you know that funny things are about to happen. Before each showing they have an employee (Player?) stand before the audience and give a little speech. So some poor schmuck had to give the speech to just the three of us.

Brad: Hi, I'm Brad, and welcome to famous players.
blizzard: There's only three of us, you really don't need to bother.
zab: Pull up a chair!
...
Brad: You know I once did this speach to a single person.
shaver: For what movie?
Brad: Reindeer Games.
Trio: [much laughter]
...
Brad: Ok guys, I have to give the speach now. ...... if you have any questions or comments that aren't retarded .....
Trio: [chortle]
Brad: .... please turn them off your cell phones and pagers so as not to disturb your two buddies there....
Trio: [guffaw]

At this point two more people came into the theatre!

NewPerson: How come no one else is here?
shaver: I think we're about to find out.

And you know what? The movie wasn't really all that horrible. It had its cheesy spots, but plenty of nice ones as well. Trying to fall asleep while coming down from a sugar high was much worse.

I turned off my brain this weekend, due to excessive relocation stress. I dug up the gnebula code and decided I should whip up a neat glade interface for it and release it. We'll see if that actually happens.

I finally got around to seeing Good Will Hunting. Not surprisingly, it was great. How can you go wrong with Gus Van Sant involved? (Hint: I grew up in Portland and really like the Red Hot Chili Peppers). Cider House Rules also made me happy, but it didn't have Ben Affleck. Nothing's perfect.

The Blizzards (and Laura) hosted an amazing Indian dinner last night. Yum. My coat still has a pleasent spicy aroma to it.

Sleep deprivation is no good at all. The upstairs neighbors called last night at 4am to tell us that the boiler was making strange noises. Until then we had been happily sleeping right through it. The noises weren't strange, they were scary. I was convinced they were filming another installment of Hellraiser in our basement.

But, of course, nothing was really wrong. It was just beeing creepy. I didn't need to get back to sleep anyway, honest.

I got to the office on Friday and found that some friends were going to be visiting Montreal over the weekend. It was quickly decided that I was going to have to join them in looking for an apartment. An hour later we had train tickets and hotel reservations.

We had the good sense to travel VIA1. We wandered past the frightening march-break-fueled lines and into the Panorama lounge. After a half hour of leather-couched goodness we were let onto the train. We got one of the seating arrangements that sits four people around a fold-able table. The table proved to be quite handy for games of travel scrabble. I was only able to win a game after the bottomless booze had disarmed Jen and Tyla. I still can't believe she was able to play aioli after a few glasses of wine.

Saturday was a mad scramble to find housing. We grabbed the Gazette and started sifting through the rental section. We applied the usual filters. Apartments must be in downtown near transit, the office(s), and restaurants. Existing appliances are welcome and heating is essential. Would you believe they advertise apartments without heating in Montreal? I guess Yeti have to live somewhere. We started making phone calls and managed to schedule a few walkthroughs that afternoon. While the boys were messing about with maps and newspapers and such, the girls had the good sense to have a quick nap. If only we had a camera; the cutesy quotient was through the roof.

The first apartment we walked through wasn't bad at all. It had a nice terrace and had been well painted by the previous tenants. The second place we saw was just amazing. On the fourth floor of a townhouse it had exposed brick walls, a nice open ceiling with rafters, nicely redone hardwood, and a terrace and roof-top patio shared with the neighbor. Its located between St. Denis and St Laurant near Prince Arthur which makes it a good fifteen minute walk from both offices. Quick inspection of the neighborhood found a nice Thai place within crawling distance. That settled it. There was neither sealing nor delivering, but signing took place.

After a successful afternoon of apartment hunting we needed dinner. We met Adam at Queue de Cheval. Our waiter, Jacques (honest), was a pleasant mix of efficiency and outright silliness. The food was great; the sauce that surrounded the spring rolls had a healthy bite to it and the garlic roasted mashed potatoes were butterlicious. Predictably, I had the salmon. I can't help that I grew up on the Wilamette.

So yes, most of you have probably figured it out. All this time spent in Montreal is not by accident. I've accepted the Dream Job from Zero Knowledge Systems and start on April first. I'm going to miss the red hat crew terribly, but I have to go kick some internet-privacy ass.

I'm typing this on the the train back to Toronto. Completing our four-seater this time is our new actress friend who recommended some fabulous furniture shops in Montreal. We just finished the chocolate mousse deserts that punctuated the pasta salad and mass quantities of meat. We're somewhere in southern Ontario passing through a recently snow-dusted countryside under a blue sky. I'm going to take a nap.

Life is good.

I am suave incarnate. As Ben and I were getting up to leave after our yummy thai food, I managed to snag myself on the table cloth and sent glasses of water cascading into my lap. At least I had the good sense to do it in front of Ben rather than That Certain Someone. As I was toweling myself off with a huge cloth napkin a nice lady sitting next to us offered me a teeny kleenex. It was a lovely gesture, but I couldn't help but giver her a surprised "What, exactly, am I supposed to do with this?" look.

The world hates procrastination. I found out this weekend that it is almost entirely impossible to have flowers delivered in London (Ontario) within two hours after six PM on a saturday. If someone would have told me it was just a two hour drive from Toronto, I would have delivered them by hand rather than spending 1:30 on the phone.

There is a series of advertisements that keep showing up in the subway. Their goal seems to be to stop teenagers from smoking by appealing to their insecurities. Go Team. Today's was especially inane. It had a picture of a despondent looking teeny person, with the text:

Poor Eddy here, aka "lumpy love handles", has a passion for burgers, butts, and his sofa. which makes him your, like, social disaster waiting to happen.
I want to run an add along side it. It would have a picture of Steph, our knock-out model friend, sipping a martini in a roof-top bar in Manhattan with a lit cigarette in her other hand.
When she's not having fabulous sex, Natasha smokes three packs a day. She will be dead by age forty. She will not see her grandchildren graduate from university. She's having too much fun to give a shit.
I mean, if the adds are going to be meaningless, they may as well be fun.

I learned another valuable lesson this weekend. Do not assume that a movie starring Ben Affleck is guaranteed to be watchable. I guess everyone has to star in a stinker from time to time. I hope they gave him lots of money, or donuts, or something. Anything.

ObGeek: 1) 1K Bogomips on an x86 box? The world gets more frightening every day. 2) I want to have Stephen's children. His kiofd mechanism looks oh so nice.

mmmm... civilization...

It is so nice to be living in a city with respectable public transportation again. I walk two blocks to the street car, ride it for 10 minutes, then transfer to the subway which drops me a block from work in about 2 minutes. Letting someone else worry about navigation also means that my time can be better spent reading, or cuddling, or what-have-you, rather than wondering how many interesting places I can find to stick the gunrack on the Chevy that invariably ties up traffic in North Carolina.

Should I even bother glowing about all the neat restaurants and shops around the office? Maybe its just me, but awesome thai food has that certain something that Wendy's lacks. Some one should let Dave know.

Anyway, I'm exceedingly happy here. Enough said.

Ben and I were forced to make emergency office stereo repairs today. Its amazing what one can do with packing tape and the Swiss Army knife that my dad gave me.

Good day, and welcome to day six.

My sixth day in Toronto, that is. We arrived last week after a frightening drive from North Carolina. Remind me never to drive for 12 hours without sleeping for 24 ever again. Its a miracle that I'm not lying dead somewhere in a ditch in central New York.

Watching last night's X-Files episode made it official; I'll never watch TV again. My favorite comment was shaver's "Lets verb the noun!" We all half expected to see "Written by Mrs Johnsonn's 3rd Grade Class" in the credits.

Four words: Milk in a Bag. Its good to be outside the US.

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