On Punctuation

I walk by a sign every morning outside a financial planning place that reads:

LIFE TOO TAXING FOR PLANS THAT WORK CALL 123-1234

This drives me insane each and every day. This is at 8 am when I am still cranky from the people who insist on talking on the bus ("like, oh my GOD, I can't believe she did that! I was, like, totally wanting to tell her blah blah blah like blah I like this boy blah...like"). I always think to myself: Why would I want to entrust my finances to people who can't even make use of a simple question mark to MAKE THEIR BLOODY SIGN MAKE SENSE? See how easy using a question mark is? I just did it twice in a row. Unless they are trying to say that life is indeed to taxing for plans that work. Meaning that those poor hard-working plans can't possibly handle how taxing life is. That might be what they mean. Rod Burgundy?

Another random comment on punctuation: We all understand that a string of exclamation marks conveys a certain amount of excitement in proportion to the number of exclamation marks in said string. Not that I am endorsing such strings (don't worry Amp). But the degree of excitement conveyed can be multiplied by 10 if the string is immediately followed by a 1 indicating that you were so excited while typing that you took your finger off shift too early in an attempt to get to the next word faster.

I have to go catch the bus in the rain now and I get to walk past the questionmarkless sign!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Wither the Arts?

A couple things have come to my attention lately that make me sad:

1. Stephen Harper cares not a whit for the arts. (not that I'm surprised)
2. A world famous violinist can play some of the most beautiful music on earth on a Stradivarius (got that? Joshua Bell + Strad + Bach) and over 1 000 people will walk by and NOT EVEN NOTICE.

These parts make me happy though:

1. Yann Martel is challenging S. Diddy to read a recommended book every two weeks. You can read about this effort here.
2. A world famous violinist agreed to masquerade as a street musician for an experiment.

Lessons Learned:

1. If you ever become Prime Minister please Read Stuff. And appreciate it. Or else.
2. If you happen to see any world famous musicians (or, frankly, ANY talented musician) playing on the street, stop and listen. It's for your own good.

ETA: ha! I spelt "whither" wrong by accident and I was about to change it when I realized that it is kind of punny!

Travelling Vicariously

The past few days have been very busy! I just got back from Rhode Island on Saturday, and left immediately for Botswana. The Rhode Islanders were all pretty crazy. I think they must put something in the water there. Or maybe it was just the people I was staying with. Dorcas was closer to sane than the rest, but Conrad and Abigail, not to mention the DeVilbisses, definitely tipped the scales to Decidedly Insane.

Mma Ramotswe and Mr J.L.B Matekoni are much easier to live with. I'm glad I decided to spend the rest of my Easter holiday in Botswana. It is the perfect combination of excitement (with the mysteries to solve), and slow paced relaxation. I highly recommend it!

I think I might move on to India next...

Books and Book Blogs

I've been checking out book blogs lately and found one that I quickly became addicted to. It's called 50 Books and you should definitely check it out. I got inspired and decided to post pictures of what I'm reading, just in case anyone cares.

The Soundtrack of My Life

While I was listening to Imogen Heap today I realized that for the second time in a month the song I was listening to described my life (well, actually, a line in the song did, the rest of the song is pretty generic). So, instead of try to figure out which one to declare the official theme song of my life, I decided to create a list of songs that make up the Soundtrack of my Life:

1. The line "don't get yourself in situations" from I Am In Love With You - Imogen Heap
Lolo also understands this. :)

2. Taking the Long Way Around - Dixie Chicks
This one is pretty obvious...I can't figure out what is supposed to occur in my life, so I avoid committing to a profession, or to a relationship (although I feel as though I WOULD possibly commit to a relationship if a suitable one presented itself). And the particularities of the song do not correspond to my life, but I wish I was travelling around in a pink RV with stars on the ceiling, possibly one that flew, so I could travel to more places.

3. Is it Any Wonder? - Keane
One of the best lyrics on love I've ever heard: "...love is just a lyric in a children's rhyme." Yes, I'm bitter about love. Who isn't, really? P.S. to my Smug Married friends (especially those of you who didn't date anyone but your spouses, you just won't understand, and that's ok): that was a RHETORICAL QUESTION. Please don't try to contradict me. I know you're blissful, how nice for you. Really, I do think it is nice, I love all of you. But. Don't. Contradict.

4. Easy to Ignore - Sixpence None the Richer
While we are on the cynical-about-love kick, I thought I would throw this in. I will stop whining now, I promise.*

5. Good Love is on the Way - John Mayer
See? I really am optimistic!

6. Why Georgia - John Mayer
He is so wise, especially for someone who also wrote "You're Body is a Wonderland." Which, music wise, I actually like. I really can't bring myself to like lyrics that include the line "bubble gum tongue" though. I'm sorry. I just can't

7. More Than This - Peter Gabriel
Peter (yes, we are on a first name basis. I did listen to him in the womb after all) does such a great job of both summing up life and making you go "huh"? If you think you understand what his lyrics mean, you are probably wrong. Which is similar to how I feel about my life. This song blows my mind...

8. Signal to Noise - Peter Gabriel featuring Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
...but this one does even more. Plus the vocals are insano. And what describes me more than insano vocals? I just don't know.

9. She Stumbles Through the Door - Sarah Masen
This describes perfectly how I feel about my faith right now. Some key lines: "on the pages of a memo were picturesque cliches she once called Providence" and "were the angels fighting demons in the corner of the room or was it happenstance?"

10. Take the Bench - Sloan
"Take the bench, little girl, and sing your little heart out."
Ok, I will.

11. Crystal Ball - Keane
Same ol' "I don't know what is happening" theme. This is pretty much how I feel at all times.

12. Square One - Coldplay
I DO just want somebody listening to what I say. THANK YOU Chris Martin of Coldplay.


*Except to say that I wish "Paperweight" by Josh Radin and Schuyler Fisk was on this list. But alas, it is not. I am really done now, the rest of the list is not whiny at all. Except the YBIAW part, but John can take it.

And Also: Adventures in Life

Yesterday I discovered as I was driving to work that I was an hour late. I had changed all the clocks except for the one on my phone, which is serving as my alarm clock while I am with the animales. So, as soon as I got to work I changed my phone. Done. Problem solved. My boss was not in and I finished all the work I was supposed to so no harm done. Later I told the story to a friend of mine. He was surprised my phone hadn't updated itself. he asked if it had an Auto Update feature. I checked. It did. So I turned it on, to avoid this problem in the future.

Today I discovered upon waking that I was an hour late again. I looked at my phone and it had Auto Updated to the old time, probably because they moved DST this year. BAH! So I decided to skip breakfast and got ready super-fast. On the way to work, I decided to get a coffee. Normally I would go to Starbucks, but Tim Horton's was on the way, so I went and ordered a coffee and breakfast, only to discover that I HAVE NO CASH. I KNEW I SHOULD HAVE GONE TO STARBUCKS! So I went in the opposite direction that I should have been going to get to work, and I went to Starbucks and got my coffee. When I got back into the car the Dixie Chicks were singing "Taking the Long Way". And I realized that, not only did this song pertain to my morning, but it also describes my life. And that actually made me happy. Now I need to go drink my coffee.

THE END

Adventures in House Sitting, Part 2

Oh animales, how I love thee, let me count the ways:
2: Escape attempts, caused by
1: Very large, evil cat, that almost killed the dog (this is not the cat I'm looking after, she is nice, this one was the spawn of the devil).
23 hours per day: The amount of time the cat spends purring. Yes this includes when it is right next to my ear at night
0: The number of times the dog has to pee when I am at work for eight hours
1 or 2: The number of times the dog has to pee at night when I am sleeping for eight hours.
0.03: The number of milliseconds it took the cat to jump out of the tub when I turned the shower on.

You Too Can Be Happy For Just $10 000 per Year!

I read an interesting article yesterday. It is basically about happiness and what we need in order to be happy. Especially interesting (although not surprising) is the fact that although the GNP has been consistently on the rise for the last while, the level of satisfaction people claim to have has stayed basically the same. What I was surprised by is the "magic number" of 10 000. This magic number is the amount of dollars per person per year that it takes to be happy. People who make more than $10 000/person/year (so a family of four would need $40 000) are not happier than those who make only $10 000. That number seemed very low to me...I bet most of the people reading this make more than that (it doesn't count if you are in school!). Also worth checking out is the part about sustainable agriculture...there were some surprising numbers there too.

Adventures in House Sitting, Part 1

I am currently house sitting for my boss, who is away in Florida. Where it is warm. And not freezing. Or full of snow...but I digress.

The house that I am sitting contains one dog and one cat. We all know how I feel about dogs so I won't gush too much, but the dog is awesome. Not as awesome or as insano as my dog. But awesome nonetheless. The cat is CRAZY. In a good way. She enjoys:

• sleeping in my laundry.
• drinking from any source of water that is NOT her own water dish.
• batting at the drapes...which she must do RIGHT NOW so she must run across the house and take a flying leap at them.
• purring/licking my face/attacking my feet (which aren't even moving!) whilst I am trying to sleep.
• licking the drops of milk out of my cereal bowl while I am distracted by the dog.
• trying to attack the dog by employing the full body, limbs akimbo, giant ferocious leap but being foiled by (ie bouncing off) the arm of the couch.

Needless to say, it has been great fun so far!

Evangelism Is My Favourite!

Sometimes I just can't believe what lengths people go to for the sake of evangelism. But I am extremely grateful that God has a "wonderful, lead-free plan for [my] life." Because, really, who doesn't love a good lead-free plan?

Time Wasting with Books

Via Paul

"It works like this: The bolded books are books I've read (and even enjoyed) [but not necessarily] ... italicized books I would like to read, books with crosses are on my shelf and asterisked books I've never heard of. The books that are striked out I am unlikely ever to read. The books listed here that haven't felt the touch of my cursor and remain unedited I could care less or more about on any given day.I imagine the books on this list were selected for their best-seller status or something like that."

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown) -shh, I know it isn't good, but it's a page turner!
2. †Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. †To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. †The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. †The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. †The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. *Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. †Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. †Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger) - *shudder*
23. †Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. †Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. †Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. †The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. *The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. *The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. †Bible
46. †Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. †Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. †Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. †The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. †The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. †Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. †War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davies)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller) - Currently in progress!
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. *Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje) (see #91)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. †The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. *Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. †Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams
87. †Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. *Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. *Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje) - I wish I hadn't read this!
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. *The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. *The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. *A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. *The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

Sickness and CD covers

I am sick at all times. It's le Poo.

On a happier note, I feel as though I should make a CD because my cousin Jaime just sent me CD cover worthy pictures...which are pretty rare considering I'm not very photogenic. I have my yearbook photos to prove that.

We are playing scrabble, it is the summer....yahoo summer.

Library Thing

My friend Emily, who works at the Waterloo Public Library (and is awesome, as is my other librarian friend Jan), told me about the coolest website ever. You can catalog all your books and create your library online. It is geeky, it is pretty, it is great. For a sample of the greatness and prettiness, see the new addition to my sidebar.

Joy Cometh in the Morning

Or so they say. "They" being, in this case, Psalm 30, and various songs based thereupon.

I am not a morning person. For me, joy cometh not in the morning. Sadness, irritability, anger and other such emotions unrelated to joy cometh in the morning. The ability to Commune With Other Human Beings cometh at around 9am. Joy cometh, at the earliest, 1pm. Unless it is a Saturday, the only day when joy cometh in the morning, when I realize I do not need to get up just yet.

There is, however, one hint of joy in most of my mornings. When I walk past a tire store on my way to work in the morning, I am greeted by a large Chow Chow and a small Chow Chow who are tied outside. Occasionally, if he is untied at the moment, the small one will try to accompany me to work. He is my friend. He is puffy. Funny puffy dog=joy.

A Ridiculously Long Time Between Posts

So, now that no even checks my blog anymore because it has been so long since I last posted....

I shall post.

Christmas was great for the following reasons:

• Carley came home. (She proceeded to leave again but that didn't make Christmas good.)
  
• Melissa, Diedre, Aaron, Jan, Paul, Michelle and Trevor all visited. Fun Times.
• I had a week off work.
• I shopped for books at a bookstore in which I needed A SHOPPING CART.
  
• I saw many babies: Abby, Aydan, Naomi and Kaedmon. Babies Everywhere.
• Did I mention the store where I bought books and used a cart?
• Jesus was born.
• I stayed with my family for a few days and just hung out. It is always wonderful to be with them.
  
• Riley wore antlers.

Yes, it was all very fun.

And now, I shall begin 2007, being resolved to not make resolutions.

Why Facial Hair is Often Wrong

What is up with Neil Gaiman's beard?

You might not actually see it if you click on the link, because the pictures are randomized...but click around the site a bit, you'll find it.

For those of you who actually care, I'm sure you've already seen it.

Quarter Life Crisis #2 (ish?)

Working full time for 20 months straight in jobs that I am less-than-passionate for has made me begin to freak out. I will probably try to resolve this cognitive dissonance by going back to school. Possibly to get an English degree. (?!?) That way, I can either be a teacher or a travel writer.

It doesn't really change the way my life will look in the short term. I was going to go back to school next year in any case. But the MTS (Master of Theological Studies) idea is beginning to look less and less attractive. Mostly because I am getting sick of church. I can't really explain it, but I am. I'm not getting sick of God, or of the people at church, or of the leadership at church, just of church. I figure this is not the way to get started in ministry. Although, if I could work at a church AND take courses in liberal arts from a secular school, I think that could be a good balance...we'll see.

Baraka

Since Jan is the boss of me, and she said this, I'm posting now.

The title of this post is Baraka. This is an Islamic word for "blessing". It is also the title of a super-rad movie.

There are several reasons that make this movie awesome:

1. no plot
2. no dialogue
3. shot in 24 countries
4. cool musique
5. beautiful scenery
6. makes several excellent points. Without using words

I know that numbers 1 and 2 don't seem to be assets. But they are. So there.

Quote of the Day

"That book sucks"

- Paul McIlwraith, Lead Pastor, WMB, when he saw me reading The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard in Starbucks. The funny thing is that I didn't realize for a second that he was joking. I thought I was going to have to change churches. :) It would have been even funnier if I had been reading the Bible.

Next time I see someone reading the Bible, I'm going to say: "that book sucks."

Uh-oh...too sacrilegious?

Batman and Son

Yesterday, while waiting for a ride to small group, I witnessed this:
A Young Man and a Small Child, both wearing capes, run into the lobby. They then used their "super-vision" to look for and finally spot the van they were waiting for pull up outside. Another boy was dropped off by 'Nana', and the small boy admired himself in the window while whispering "batman...yeah...batman" to himself.

I was confused by this scenario...I thought the young man was the cool babysitter, possibly the cool uncle, to this small child. And I thought "Nana" was picking the small child up to take him home with his older brother. But...could it be? Could this guy, who looked younger than me...possibly be the father of these two? My confusion ended when the older one called him "Dad."

Coolest, Cutest Dad EVER.